Carolyn Regan - Legal Services Commission

ePolitix.com speaks to Carolyn Regan chief executive of the Legal Services Commission about the 60th anniversary of the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 and the importance of legal aid to a fair society.

Listen to the podcast of this interview.

Question: What is legal aid and what does legal aid fund?

Carolyn Regan: Legal aid funds the whole range of legal aid services including help, advice and ultimately representation in court. It is funded through taxpayers' money at about £2bn a year for England and Wales. About half of that is spent on crime, around £1.1bn.

The balance is spent on family and civil legal aid. It funds a range of law, and a proportion of that is means tested. Therefore, we look to see if people are eligible for legal aid and in some cases whether there is a contribution to be made. It's very much focused on both high street solicitors and not-for-profit organisations like the Citizens Advice Bureaus that we fund, as well as law centres.

We are also introducing new innovative forms of service delivery. For example, we have a telephone helpline which we are extending in terms of longer hours and Saturday morning calls. It provides telephone advice in 170 languages.

We are funding five community legal advice centres which offer integrated legal advice for a range of problems in locations around the country and housing repossession duty schemes where we offer you legal advice and help in court when your house is threatened with repossession. We are also increasingly taking services to where clients are. We have sessions in GP surgeries, women's refuges and in prisons.

Question: Can you tell us about the role of the Legal Services Commission?

Carolyn Regan: We fund about five thousand contracts. They are mainly solicitors - largely in a range of medium and small firms - and also not-for-profit organisations like Citizens Advice Bureaus and law centres, as well as local voluntary organisations.

We're based on the principle that fair access to justice is a cornerstone of our society. Legal aid helps people access that justice when they couldn't have otherwise afforded it. It is our responsibility to make sure we balance the needs of clients, the requirement for equality service, and also offer value for money given that this is funded by taxpayers.

Legal aid represents about 10 per cent of the overall legal market at £2bn and therefore we have some potential to shape the legal services market. Our vision is very much one of benefiting the public; both clients and taxpayers.

Question: This year is the 60th anniversary of the passing of the Legal Aid and Advice Act in 1949. How will the LSC mark this occasion?

Carolyn Regan: This is a great occasion for legal aid and we are going to be celebrating in a number of ways with partners and stakeholders and trying to look back and reflect on how legal aid has developed over the last 60 years. We're also looking at what opportunities there are going forward like telephone advice, video links, and really getting information to people earlier and sooner and in ways that they can access easily.

It's an opportunity for celebration and looking ahead at how we can modernise services by taking advantage of technology. We will be having a touring exhibition and a legal action group conference in June and we hope to engage as wide a range of people as possible.

Question: How has legal aid changed since the passing of the Act in 1949?

Carolyn Regan: Legal aid came in as part of the post-war welfare reforms. From 1946 it was being developed but came into being in 1949. It was set up to meet the increasing need for divorce from people leaving the armed forces and coming back from the war. That's its origins. Criminal legal aid was originally available in a limited form from 1903 but it was funded by local rate payers. Since 1960 criminal legal aid has been funded centrally through magistrates' courts.

Duty solicitors, which are still available on a 24/7 rota in every police station in England and Wales, when someone needs legal advice, were introduced in 1984. Legal aid today is much more diverse than it was 60 years ago, through greater use of telephones and the internet. For example, we get three million people looking at our website for advice, to download forms and for frequently asked questions.

We have also funded a number of landmark cases. Most recently we had the case with the Gurkha's requesting to stay here, winning their judicial review and challenging policy. There are many other high profile cases going back over the last 60 years.

We fund help with housing problems and debt problems – which are topical at the moment. We also help people get access to welfare benefits, care in the community, and we help couples and individuals resolve disputes when they are separating or divorcing, such as disagreements over contact with children. So we have a very varied range of legal aid.

Question: Why is the provision of legal aid still a fundamental part of our welfare system?

Carolyn Regan: This was very much a guiding principle in the establishment of civil and criminal legal aid. Every citizen's right to a defence is fundamental to a civilized society. It was very much a principle when the legal aid scheme was set up and it is very much an ongoing principle today. It's a cornerstone of our society.

If people are charged with a crime they are entitled to a fair defence and that is part of British society as we know it. Legal aid also ensures fair access to justice not just on the criminal side but also in social justice. It was at the centre of society 60 years and still is today. That's why it is important and will continue to be.

Question: What are the LSC doing to help people get legal advice during the current recession?

Carolyn Regan: Demand is increasing month on month for a number of services so we can provide help for people through our community advice helpline which is 0845 345 4345. The helpline can either give advice over the telephone or point people towards local face-to-face advisers near where they live or work. Large numbers of people are using the telephone service and we are dealing with an average of 600 cases a month of housing repossession. That's a significant increase from last December.

We have expanded our legal aid in courts for people who are in danger of losing their homes. We have put in place a housing possession court duty scheme which involves a solicitor being in the court on the day of their court hearing in every court nationwide. We've also made an additional £13m available and that's for extra cases in debt and housing, in areas of greatest need.

The sooner people can get earlier advice in their cases the better in terms of helping them and allowing the legal advisor to prepare in advance. Prevention is better than cure, it's good value. Helping people to keep their home can also help prevent costs to other services. For example, the cost of a family made homeless is about £16,000 to £20,000 a year. By helping people to get early legal advice, to be represented in court, we hope to keep more families in their homes and to avoid housing repossessions.

Question: How does legal aid help to tackle inequality and social injustice in society?

Carolyn Regan: We know from our own and independent research most people have a number of interconnected problems. What we're doing in our new services is to invest in community legal advice centres which offer advice in five areas of social welfare law. That's housing, debt, employment, community care, and welfare benefits.

Those centres, which are delivered in partnership with local authorities and jointly funded by them, can identify the issues which face that community and they can work with all other stakeholder groups. For example, closer working with the NHS in terms of getting advice to health centres and GP surgeries, and closer working with voluntary organisations who are meeting specific needs in that town, city, or location.

Legal aid can also help people break the cycle of poverty. For example, a woman fleeing domestic violence also get help with family law, with housing issues and debt problems, all under one roof. Our housing possession court scheme prevents people getting into further debt if they're in danger of losing their home. There are a number of ways, both in terms of help to individuals, help to families and working in communities to address local issues that are relevant.

Question: What does the future look like for legal aid?

Carolyn Regan: I think the future is good. There is certainly no shortage of clients and we're continuing to develop a new approach to commissioning legal aid services. That includes joint commissioning with other funders like local authorities where we pool our budgets and commission integrated social welfare law advice in partnership with others. That's how we develop the community legal advice centres which offer joined-up advice. That also means that the services are shaped to the local client needs and it also means that legal aid is more accessible.

We are also consulting on some changes to the crime side. Firstly, whether criminal legal aid should be means tested in the crown court. That means if defendants are convicted and are able to pay towards their defence costs they should pay and we then may be able to extend the reach of legal aid. That's going on at the moment.

The Legal Services Commission, which is the organisation that commissions legal aid across England and Wales, is looking to simplify our processes and systems. We are reducing the number of staff internally, developing a new structure that will help us to focus on the delivery of effective legal aid.

We want to use the 60th year to hear about people's views about how we should continue to develop legal aid over the next 60 years, focusing on what clients want and need.

We're also looking at new ways of early resolution for cases. Increasing, for example, the amount of money we spend on family mediation. We know that it's a good service, we're expanding the funding going into mediation and we're putting money into training new mediators. Helping people to resolve their problems early is really useful in terms of addressing family disputes. There's lots of work to be done and we look forward to continuing both discussions and the ongoing work.

Question: Do you think there's an awareness among the general public about the work legal aid does?

Carolyn Regan: I don't think the public is aware of legal aid. People know about legal aid when they have a legal problem and are often referred by word of mouth. Once they go through the system we get very good feedback about the services offered. Lawyers are very aware of us.

In this 60th year we want to raise the profile of legal aid as a high quality public service which is available when people want it. We signpost people to legal aid regardless where they live and if they just want telephone advice that's fine. There's a lot of work to do in raising the profile and the potential of legal aid.

Find out more by visiting the Legal Services Commission's Stakeholder page.