Wisdom of the crowd

State-funded legal services are facing unprecedented cuts that could see four in five not-for-profit legal advice providers close their doors to the public. But against this bleak backdrop, these organisations continue to attract strong public support, according to the result of an opinion poll published last week.

Social welfare law: what the public wants from civil legal aid, reports on the second national opinion poll in two years to be undertaken by the market research company GfK NOP on behalf of the Legal Action Group (LAG). The first was carried out in October 2010 and the findings were published in the report, Social welfare law: what is fair?

These two polls have produced consistant findings:

• 82 per cent of people in the latest poll, and 84 per cent in the first, believed that free advice on common civil legal problems should be available to everyone, or at least to those with income on or below the national average wage.
• Support for legal services paid for by the state was consistent across social classes.
• 66 per cent in both polls said they would go to their local CAB or other advice centre, and 14 per cent in the current poll said they'd go to a solicitor to obtain help with housing, benefits, debt or employment cases.
• People in the lowest social class DE were the least likely to be willing to use the internet or telephone to obtain advice.
• In the latest poll there is rising support across all social classes for employment law advice to be paid for by the state.

When designing the opinion polls we decided to include debt, benefits and tax credits, employment and housing, as these areas of social welfare law (SWL) can be characterised as the law of everyday life, such is the demand for assistance with them.

A cross-section of 1,000 randomly selected members of the public were questioned in a phone survey which took place on 14 January 2012. The results were compared with those from the last poll and a statistical test (a two-tailed t-test z-test www.surveystar.com/our_services/ztest.htm) was applied to the results to identify those for which there was a statistically significant difference compared to the previous poll.

A large part of the government's justification for the planned cuts in legal aid is that it has to prioritise the protection of rights under the European Convention on Human Rights or risk falling foul of international law (see Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales, November 2010, MoJ). What they chose to ignore is that the legal aid system and other state support for legal services has also expanded over time because of social change. In the post-war years with the establishment of the welfare state, civil law rapidly developed. Laws were approved by parliament which increased people's individual rights in response to political pressure, but awareness of and the means of enforcing these rights lagged behind.

Common problems

LAG does not argue that public opinion should trump all other factors in determining what areas of law receive state support for legal advice services, but we do believe that the government is in danger of completely ignoring the strong views of the public in its plans to cut much of civil legal aid. The cuts to the legal help scheme are especially significant as this provides much of the initial advice and assistance on the common civil legal problems which the wider public identifies with. The shift in opinion on prioritising employment law illustrates how non-legal factors, such as the downturn in the economy, can lead to a greater demand for state-funded advice services.

Support from the public for legal services paid for by the state, we believe, reflects a stong culture of fair play in respect of legal rights. Many people think, even if they should not qualify for free legal advice advice themselves, a safety net should be in place to ensure that the state pays for legal advice to assist people when things go wrong in their lives. What the public wants, it seems, is a system that either gives free advice to everyone with civil legal problems, or one that at least serves people on or below the national average income. What they see as the priority for such a system is the protection of children, advice on housing, and, increasingly, on employment; with advice on benefits and debt having less, but still significant, importance.

We have made five recommendations based on the findings of our polling, including taking the 'polluter pays' approach in respect of debt advice, which we believe should be funded by the financial services sector (see box).

Last week the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill reached the report stage in the House of Lords. Peers are in the process of considering a number of amendments to the bill and there will be a final opportunity to change the bill at the third reading stage in the House of Lords before it goes back to the House of Commons for approval. At this juncture the bill enters the 'ping-pong' phase in which it goes back and forth between the two houses of parliament until agreement is reached on an amended bill.

MPs and peers have misgivings over various aspects of the bill including the removal of social welfare law from scope and the impact this will have on the public and the not-for-profit (NfP) advice sector.

Depleted supply

Partly in response to these concerns the government introduced the £20m Advice Services Fund to assist NfP organisations undergoing cuts in the current year. LAG welcomed this, but observed many solicitors were also in financial difficulties due to the changes in legal aid. A review of advice services is also currently being undertaken by the Cabinet Office. It should be stressed that the government is giving no guarantees over what will happen to these organisations and their clients when legal aid for the bulk of social services law cases go.

Currently there are around 2,000 firms undertaking civil legal aid work mainly in family law and just under 300 charities and other NfP organisations with legal aid contracts almost entirely in SWL (see Legal Services Commission Annual Report and Accounts). About half of the civil legal aid firms will cease to undertake legal aid work after April next year if the LASPO bill becomes law with no major amendments. Much of the work that the NfP organisations carry out, apart from housing cases in which repossession is threatened, will be cut. LAG estimates that more than 80 per cent of the NfP providers will be forced to leave the legal aid system.

Withdrawing state support for SWL will leave a large section of the population without recourse to legal advice. This will have a damaging impact on social cohesion and ultimately undermine the rule of law, as the belief will grow that civil legal rights are a luxury only open to the few people with the resources to pay for legal advice, or who qualify for a free service under human rights legislation.

The reasons why access to civil legal aid was opened up nearly 40 years ago with the introduction of green form legal aid (the forerunner of legal help) have not gone away. The state still makes decisions on people's lives over everything from providing a home to disability benefits, and gets it wrong on many occasions. In a democracy people should be given a chance to challange such decisions.

Equally, large corporations with plenty of resouces can neglect the rights of individuals. It is up to the state to ensure equality before the law for ordinary members of the public in these and other cases.

LAG warns that while legal aid is perhaps not an election-winning issue, a public disinfranchised from civil justice will become increasingly dissillusioned and frustrated. This will feed a mood for change, a political force which if it gains momentumn usually proves fatal to a government.