The Wardman Wire

This is a story about how there are now certain offenses for which you are now denied access to a fully trained solicitor, or legal support on the spot, if you are arrested. This is a result of a scheme targetting a (marginal) reduction in the legal aid budget. It has been completely under my radar.

If you are arrested for one a series of offenses (listed below) you will be able to make a phone call from the police station to a “Legal Aid version of NHS Direct”, and you will not talk to a solicitor – but to a paralegal. This scheme was piloted in 2008, and is now in place. To date it has been run by First Assist Ltd, FirstAssist. There are numerous aspects of the scheme that have proved controversial, and most recently the verdict in two European Court of Human Rights cases at the end of 2008 established that the right to a fair trial under article 6 involved having a lawyer give advice to a suspect before they are interviewed by the police.

The savings will come to a whopping (!) eight to ten million pounds per year from a total Legal Aid budget of more than two billion pounds a year (2006 figure for England and Wales). That comes to a saving of well under 0.5%. For a mischevious comparison that is roughly the same as the total amount earned from Legal Aid by the top 12 individual lawyers in 2004-5 .

The story came up in the comments of another one about how the Government has determined that the next phase of ID Cards will be trialled in Manchester and that the best place to persuade women to swallow ID Cards is in Hairdressing Salons. Bookmark that story then continue on this article.

Andrew Hickey commented :

Bad enough we also got to ‘pilot’ the new scheme where you no longer have a right to a lawyer if you’re arrested… Manchester seems to be to Labour what Scotland was to the Tories in the 80s, a place to try out every bad idea first…

I think the Manchester Modern Liberty Convention just got two foci for its agenda.

Preliminary Research into the Criminal Defence Service Direct

The original story of the impending changes was mentioned on the BBC website in October 2007 :

The government has been criticised for cutting the right of arrested suspects to advice from a qualified lawyer.

In a little-noticed change, from next February most people who are arrested and held in custody in England and Wales for minor offences will usually be denied the right to speak to a duty lawyer.

Instead, they will be put through to a telephone call centre, staffed by legal advisers – who are not qualified as lawyers.

In London, most of the advisers will be former police officers.

Spokesman for the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, Robert Brown, told Radio 4’s Law in Action programme that the scheme was “call-centre justice on the cheap”.

The service, called Criminal Defence Services Direct is modelled on NHS Direct, and run by the Legal Services Commission (LSC).

That should give you sufficient background, so here are some more references for people who want to find out more about this.

Judging from the pilot, Criminal Defence Service Direct is a phone bank that sits alongside the Duty Solicitor Phone setup, and takes calls for a specified set of offences within a tight set of procedures.

Telephone Advisers are not Solicitors, but are paralegals supervised by solicitors. There are more details below the fold.

References for the Story

These are the results of some initial digging.

Assessment of the scheme by solicitor: Dec 2007
http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/001669.php

Detailed report by Kings College Centre for Crime and Justice Studies: “Flying in the Face of the Evidence”:
http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/cdsdirect.html

Law Society Gazette Feature Feb 2009:
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/criminal-defence-call-centres-may-work-are-they-justice

(Suggests savings will be 8 billion nationally, includes a very detailed history).

House of Lords Debate on Initial Statutory Order
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2008-01-23b.293.2&s=CDS+Direct#g297.0

Costs (which I think relate to the Pilot)
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2007-10-24b.159678.h&s=%22CDS+Direct%22#g159678.q0

Web page for Criminal Defence Services Direct:
http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/criminal/cds_direct.asp

CDS Direct office manual (PDF, 300k), March 07 Looks to have been updated for Live Environment.
http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/docs/criminal_contracting/CDSDIRECTOFFICEMANUALMarch07.pdf

“Benefits realisation plan” (PDF, <100k, Feb 08):
http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/docs/cds_main/benefitsrealistationupdated110208.pdf

Which offences does this apply to?

Offences for for which telephone advice is the only option

(a) Cases under Sections 4,5,6,7 and 7A Road Traffic Act 1988, of
driving with excess alcohol, driving whilst unfit through drink or
drugs, drunk in charge, and failing to provide a specimen.
(b) Cases in relation to a non-imprisonable offence.
(c) Cases of warrants for failing to appear at Court, failing to pay
court fines, a means warrant or warrant for commitment,
arrested on a warrant for recall to prison
(d) Cases of breach of Police or Court bail conditions.

Exceptions to this rule (attendance at Police Station is by a paralegal is “allowed”)

(a) An interview or an identification procedure is going to take
place.
(b) The client is unable to communicate over the telephone.
(c) The client complains of serious maltreatment by the police.
(d) The investigation includes another alleged offence which does
not fall within the cases limited to telephone advice.
(e) The supplier is already at the police station, in which case the
supplier may attend the client but may not claim more than the
telephone advice fixed fee.
(f) The client is arrested on a warrant for failing to attend court,
and the solicitor has clear documentary evidence available that
would result in the client being released from custody.

State provides Indemnity Insurance for Service Provider

A snippet from the CDS Direct office manual“

38. The Legal Services Commission provides CDS Direct with indemnity insurance by underwriting any exposure to claim.”

Wrapping Up

That’s all for now, and I’d recommend doing some reading before jumping to reactions, as both the Tories and Lib Dems in the Lords welcomed certain aspects of the scheme.

However, it looks like the usual process under New Labour – a sub-optimal result caused by a desire to push through legislation that does collateral damage to parties they hadn’t thought about, and a failure to listen to some sensible suggestions. In this case it seems to have been done via Statutory Instrument, which prevents amendments in Parliament anyway.

I think that this will eventually be sorted out, if only by the European Court of Human Rights. Two political questions are these: how much money has been thrown away getting it wrong first time round, and how many people have been trampled underfoot in the initial wild goose chase.

A third questions is this: what will the other parties do about this?

Tags: alix mortimer, cds direct, criminal defence service, criminal justice, legal reform, right to a solicitor