Figures released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) reveal a low number of referrals from the mandatory telephone gateway service for debt, education and discrimination law cases.

The telephone gateway service was established by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Apart from a few exceptions, such as cases involving people deprived of their liberty, those with debt, education and discrimination law problems must use the telephone gateway service to access legal aid. Providers of the gateway service are supposed to refer cases either to a specialist within their firm or to an outside firm or other agency if they identify a case that needs more detailed work and the client qualifies for legal aid.

In an answer to a parliamentary question (HC written question 111874, 7 November 2017) from shadow lord chancellor and shadow secretary of state for justice Richard Burgon, MoJ minister of state Dominic Raab revealed the low number of cases being referred from the helpline for face-to-face advice (17 November 2017, see table). In the last financial year (2016/17), no cases were referred for advice on discrimination law.

A spokesperson from the MoJ told Legal Action that the telephone service ‘offers exactly the same level of service as face-to-face advice’ and that ‘any client that needs face-to-face support will always be offered it’. They pointed out that there were a total of 2,500 legal aid cases under the discrimination law category last year. However, this does not seem consistent with the telephone referral figures provided by Raab. ‘I think the MoJ are conflating different sets of statistics,’ said LAG director Steve Hynes. ‘It’s clear from the figures Richard Burgon has uncovered that the telephone gateway is failing to identify discrimination, debt and education cases for referral.’