15/11/2011

Cases involving debt, housing and welfare benefits should be retained for people diagnosed with severe mental illness even if their income will be above the new, stricter thresholds was also recommended by authorsDr Alice Forbes and Professor Deborah James. The report, published by the London School of Economics, argues that specialist legal advisers provide an importantservice, ensuring cases are judged on merit rather than the client’s ability to speak on their own defence.

The report was presented as evidence during a briefing of the Lords to explain the importance of legal aid for areas such as Welfare Benefits, debt and housing. The briefing, which waspart of the Justice for All campaign, was held ahead of the Bill receiving its first reading in the Lords on 3 November.

The findings of the report are based on a study of civil legal aid cases from the initial consultation, in the offices of two London legal services providers, to their resolution. Many cases werethe result of the failures within various government institutions. In addition, debt problemswere oftencreated when one means-tested benefits is suspended, which triggered other suspensions, resulting in rapidly accumulating debts and the possible of eviction.

Human suffering and escalating costs to the public purse are prevented by advisers providing timely support to appeal. Advisors enable clients to become system literate and provide information about rights and responsibilities and ways of approaching problems using the state, institutional frameworks.

Other recommendations in the report include:

• Legal aid should be retained for disadvantaged young people between ages of 18-25 for debt, housing and welfare benefits.
• Scope of legal aid cover should be drastically cut only after the new Universal Credit system has been implemented.
• Since much legally aided work is the result of systemic failure in government officers, a ‘polluter pays’ clause on the organisation in question should be introduced to subsidise cost burdens.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill 2010-11 creates a perverse incentive to wait until problems have escalated to crisis point by retaining legal aid cover for people threatened with homelessness, without tackling the initial source of the problem (e.g. loss of Welfare Benefits) to prevent the situation from recurring. As the Bill stands, victims of government bureaucracy are unlikely to have their cases heard at all. More information is available at: http://www.community-links.org/linksuk/?p=2871&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Linksuk+%28linksUK%29 http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/legalaidsentencingandpunishmentofoffenders.html