Is it too late to prevent a race towards low prices for minimum quality? asks Richard Miller
In these turbulent times when we don’t even know what payment structures legal aid firms will be working under in three months, it is an unenviable task to try to forecast where we will be in three to five years.
Of one thing I am certain. The system we end up with will not look anything like Lord Carter’s blueprint (see Legal Aid—A Market-based Approach to Reform). Some of it misunderstood the legal services market and would not work in practice. The Legal Services Commission (LSC) cannot or will not adopt some of the ideas. The government has repeated that there is no more money, which compromises the principle of competitive tendering.
The government is still putting £2bn per year into legal aid. Much of the work is subject to human rights obligations. The government must ensure access to services in criminal defence, public law, family, mental health and immigration, which account for around three-quarters of the budget. In social welfare law, the arguments are about how
