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Our work is nearly done, but the job of securing access to justice is far from over
As the Low Commission prepares to bow out later this year, James Sandbach looks at the lessons that the social welfare law sector should take away from the work of this innovative and well-respected body.
An important strand of our work has been to argue for health and advice services to be joined up, as a way of improving people’s health and well-being.
The year 2016 will be the last year of the Low Commission’s work. We hope we have made a productive contribution to the access to justice debate. It is not just about a post-LASPO crisis in funding of lawyers’ services, but also accessibility of the system of legal redress for citizens, levels of legal knowledge, and – crucially – the ‘running on empty’ challenges for the wider network of non-profit information, advice and advocacy providers. It is also a political challenge, so needs to be framed in a language to which policy-makers can relate.
One strand of our work that has developed significantly, following our third report (The Role of Advice Services in Health Outcomes, with the Advice Services Alliance), concerns joining up health and advice services to improve health and well-being outcomes. With an NHS chief executive rarely out of the news for calling for the system to ‘do things differently’, this type of strategic idea goes down well in the current public services landscape: a one-day conference we held at the Department of Health confirmed interest from policy-makers and commissioners. We are also working with the ASA to publish a toolkit for the advice sector to get local advice strategies into place. Such strategies were called for in our first report (Tackling the Advice Deficit), and many councils now follow them, with Somerset, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Calderdale all referencing the Low Commission’s work and approach in their advice strategies.
Local authorities are not the only bodies running with our ideas: our proposals on reforming courts and tribunals are increasingly being taken up by the judiciary and the Ministry of Justice. Briggs LJ’s interim report of his review of the civil courts proposes ‘transferring some functions currently undertaken by judges at the more routine end of their spectrum of work … to Case Officers and for the automation of some of those functions’; it is also suggests using IT to ‘enable court users to issue a claim without the assistance of lawyers by accessing online software’.
In Wales, our proposed National Advice Network is up and running, underpinned by Welsh government support. We will be launching a further ‘Manifesto for Advice’ in Wales for the assembly elections. In England, we have been working to put public legal education back on the agenda, resulting in the launch of a new all-party group, for which LAG will be providing the secretariat on an ongoing basis. As well as working with MPs and peers, and our involvement in parliamentary debates (such as on the advice needs implications of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill), we have been taking our case directly to the cabinet and various ministers. We can’t, at the moment, report on the outcomes of these meetings, but we hope to announce something positive in future editions of Legal Action. Our latest newsletter covering these and other activities is available from our website. ■
Success of ‘polluter pays’ for debt advice maybe short-lived
Private household and consumer debt has been as much a feature of the UK’s economic problems as public debt. The problem is not going away: according to Office for Budget Responsibility figures, levels of family debt are edging back towards those reached in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash, with the OBR also predicting the debt-to-income ratio will rise to pre-crisis levels over the coming five years. Increasing household debt pushes up demand for debt advice and debt remedies, especially when combined with benefit cuts.
Since the government removed debt advice from the scope of legal aid and scrapped the Financial Inclusion Fund, the sector has had to reinvent itself. It has done so successfully, largely on the back of the Financial Conduct Authority levy-funded Money Advice Service, which now co-ordinates debt advice funding. In many respects, the FCA levy on the financial sector has been an innovative example of a ‘polluter pays’ approach to funding advice.
How sustainable is this system, though? Recent reviews of MAS and the finance advice markets, and the Treasury consultation on ‘money guidance’ services, suggest there is some rethinking of policy going on, including possibly bringing together MAS with the new pensions guidance service. The outcome of the reviews is that MAS is likely to have much smaller budget in future, despite increasing demand for advice.
Citizens Advice delivers pension guidance on behalf of the Treasury, under the Pension Wise brand, and delivers the lion’s share of MAS debt advice contracts. The shrinking of money advice funding could not only have a very detrimental impact on the Citizens Advice network, but also leave the country ill equipped to deal with a future consumer debt crisis.