As you know I don’t get out often. So yesterdays mock SQM audit, the second in a month, was an interesting stray from my usual path. One thing this requires actually to read files – rather than appeal a cost reduction of a fairly discrete point. Doing this brought home 2 points really clearly.
Firstly how vital legal aid is to those who receive it and secondly how administratively constricting the system is.
You know the first point and you also know the flip side – what a disaster LASPO is for those now out of scope. The sample I saw however confirmed without a doubt that a small amount of money spent on advice and assistance clearly makes lives immeasurably better and must deliver down the line savings on other public budgets.
I am sure you get the other point too. You may however only just be coming to understand how CCMS might not be the liberating force it has been heralded. One file is no more than an anecdote but the one I saw, managed on CCMS from cradle to grave, bears out everything the LAPG and LAG have been saying. What a nightmare and not even close to being “teething troubles”.
With yesterdays announcement on further cuts and Duty Contracts we really do live in legal aid end times.
And also interesting to note how, increasingly, much of the work on such files is now about providing the LAA box-tickers with the increasingly-absurd evidence requirements to show that an obviously impecunious soul is actually, er, impecunious.