R eforms to civil legal aid under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012 have had a devastating impact on women’s access to justice. In particular, women who have experienced or are in danger of domestic violence are being put at greater risk – along with their children.
This is one of the key findings of the report Justice denied: impacts of the government’s reforms to legal aid and court services on access to justice, which was published by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on behalf of the joint trade union campaign, Speak Up for Justice.
Staff survey and interviews with experts
The research involved interviews with experts in the field; a survey of staff working in courts, legal advice and representation, and probation; and analysis of legal aid statistics. It found that, in the view of experts, women and children are having unsafe contact with perpetrators of domestic violence, and cuts to legal aid have meant that the ability to protect a child is more limited due to lack of access to representation.
In March 2016, the government published its Ending violence against women and girls strategy.2 However, access to justice must be a key part of achieving this objective. As Women’s Aid told us during the report’s research interviews:
There needs to be joined up thinking, for example, access to legal aid is vital to keeping survivors of domestic violence safe. Access to legal aid has to be front and centre of any strategy to tackle violence against women and girls.
More widely, the research indicated consensus among experts and staff about the negative impacts, on access to justice, of the government’s reforms and of cuts to civil legal aid and court services. Cuts to prison law legal aid, for example, have had a devastating impact, and according to the evidence given to us by the Howard League for Penal Reform:
The financial savings from reforms to prison legal aid are tiny. But the human and social cost is huge and out of kilter with the rest of the government’s policy. If prisoners can’t access prison law legal aid, they are less likely to have respect for prison rules and regulations.
Our analysis also shows that, since 2011/12, cases relating to help and representation for housing matters have declined by over 60 per cent. However, the number of people likely to require assistance has increased. According to homeless charity Crisis, 114,790 households applied to their local authority for homelessness assistance in 2015/16, an 11 per cent increase since 2010/11.
Changes to legal aid have been cuts-focused … there is now a much higher threshold for accessing legal aid. This means there is limited means for people to enforce their rights (Richard Miller, head of legal aid at the Law Society)
In the area of debt, there has been a 99 per cent drop in cases of legal help since 2011–12 , but again this decline is unlikely to reflect the need for legal advice. According to research by the TUC (2016), more than one million families with a household income below £30,000 are now in extreme debt.
Between 2010/11 and 2015/16, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) budget has been cut by £1.8bn – equivalent to 20 per cent. As part of these cuts, HM Courts and Tribunals Service has had its budget reduced by £157m (16 per cent), and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by £129m (21 per cent).
Our staff survey found that four in five respondents believe that the cuts and legal aid reforms have had a detrimental impact on access to justice. When asked about cuts to the CPS, 90 per cent of respondents felt that these had been detrimental to the effective delivery of justice, thus diminishing access to justice.
The increase in litigants in person (LiPs) was also viewed by the majority of staff (87 per cent) as having a detrimental impact on the ability of family and civil courts to deliver justice fairly, effectively and efficiently. As one court usher told us:
Although all sides try to assist where appropriate … it’s not a level playing field and never can be. I’ve had a judge say to me, if only he brought up this point, the decision could have been different!
Staffing and workload
The message from staff about the impacts of these changes on service delivery was clear and consistent. An associate prosecutor told us: ‘There has been a significant increase in my working hours, and I am struggling on every case to fulfil both my statutory professional duties and to do justice to each and every case.’
And a family court adviser said: ‘We are under enormous pressure to work faster, to be cautious about committing Cafcass [the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service] or the courts to more involvement, and the level of evidence required when arguing for this means that, in my view children are being put at risk.’
IT in courts
In addition to their views on staffing and workload, we also asked about the use of technology in courts. Nearly half of respondents (42%) agreed with the statement: ‘IT systems are unreliable, which causes problems when cases are being heard Language used to describe existing technology included: ‘ancient’ , ‘incompatible’ and ‘unreliable’ .
We are concerned that the government is pressing ahead with its programme of closing another 86 courts in this parliament before some technology has been piloted and before there has been an assessment of the impacts of the last round of court closures on access to justice. We welcome promised investment in technology, but we have recommended that systems be developed in collaboration with staff and be fully tested before being rolled out.
Court closure proposals
Staff and experts were asked their views about the court closures. The majority of staff surveyed (71 per cent) highlighted the negative impacts on access to justice, the effective delivery of justice, and on court users and staff. Their reasons included:
The Justice Alliance states in relation to future closures:
The closures will have an enormous impact on justice around the country. Witness evidence may provide a different perspective [from] the prosecution case, but they may not be able to get to a local court now … The government has not considered the impacts on justice, the plans could lead to miscarriages of justice. We need these local services.
As part of our research, we also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request asking about the impacts of the reforms to legal aid on wider public services and the knock-on costs. This relates to a stated objective of the legal aid reforms, which is to deliver better value for money for the taxpayer.
However, the response from the MoJ was far from satisfactory. We were referred to Treasury minutes from 2013, which stated that the government did not believe that ‘any wider costs could be meaningfully estimated’. So, we cannot know if these reforms have delivered a better deal for the taxpayer; however, the evidence is telling us that they have had a detrimental impact on access to justice.
Our recommendations to government include the following: