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3.11Clients with debt, education or discrimination problems can only seek telephone, not face to face, advice unless particular exceptions apply; this is known as the telephone gateway. Email and webcam advice is also available; when referring to telephone advice the LAA includes all remote electronic means of getting advice.
3.12Clients are expected to have their cases dealt with in full over the telephone unless certain exceptions apply. The operation of the gateway is dealt with in Part 2 of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure) Regulations and para 8.7 onwards of the Lord Chancellor’s Guidance.
3.13An exempt person can choose whether to go to the gateway or to a face to face provider; everyone else must go to the gateway. Exempt persons are:
•a person deprived of their liberty;
•a child (under 18);
•a previously assessed person – that is, someone who the gateway has referred to a face to face provider within the last 12 months and returns now with the same or a linked problem.
3.14Where a client calls the gateway, an operator (who is not legally trained or a specialist caseworker) will assess their financial eligibility. As standard practice, Civil Legal Advice (CLA) operators will not make the assessment of suitability for telephone advice for eligible clients, they will instead put the client through to a CLA specialist caseworker to make the assessment.
1MOJ briefing on Suitability for Assessment dated 13 December 2012. Unless they are an exempt person, the client’s wishes are not relevant at this point.
3.15The specialist caseworker will only refer the client for face to face advice if:
•the client is exempted;
•the client’s instructions cannot be understood or acted on;
•the client cannot understand or act on the advice;
•certificated work is required, in which case a referral should be made as soon as possible.
3.16The contract holders for education and discrimination also hold the only contracts for face to face advice in those categories, and therefore will either refer the client to one of their own offices, or to an agent. The debt contract is for telephone advice only, and therefore the debt telephone providers will refer to face to face provision.
3.17In the tender round for 2013 contracts, the LAA did not tender for face to face debt work. But every organisation awarded a housing contract also received a notional four debt matter starts, and therefore is also a debt provider (the supervisor standard is a joint one). Therefore, in practice, any referral for face to face advice will be to a housing provider wearing its ‘debt hat’ rather than a separate con-tracted debt provider. The effect of the LASPO cuts is that virtually the only debt work in scope is mortgage possession.
3.18If you, working in a face to face service with a housing and debt contract, are approached by a client with a debt problem, you must refer them to the gateway unless they are exempt. If the gateway refers a case to you, you should record the referral, including the reference number, on your file. Face to face services cannot take on debt cases, except for exempt persons or as a gateway referral, and any file opened in breach of this rule will be nil assessed. Applications for certificates may be made without going via the gateway but only when all work that could possibly be done under Legal Help has been done (and the application will not be funded). It appears in practice little certificate work is referred out from the gateway.
2See para 8.12 of the Lord Chancellor’s Guidance.