Problems at Central London County Court - Update

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This is an extract from the Resolver form for complaints about HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Two weeks ago I posted about problems I had been having with Central London County Court not issuing an appeal against a Possession Order or dealing with an urgent application to stay enforcement of that Order pending the outcome of the appeal. The day after I posted that I received a letter from the Court dated 30 May informing me that my appeal papers which I had sent on by email on 2 May had been received and referred to a Judge. The letter did not say anything about my application to stay enforcement.

I have also been able to speak to somebody Court. As the system showed that it was my third call and that nobody had called back the outside caller centre was able to put me through to somebody at the Court. She told me that there was nothing that could be done about my urgent application from a month earlier. This was because the papers had been referred to a Judge. I asked if somebody could not go to the Judge's office and see if this case could be moved closer to the top of the pile of cases waiting to be dealt with by the Judge. I was told that this would not be possible there were many Judges to whom papers were sent and the Court did not keep a record of which Judge a particular case was referred to. This meant that until the Judge returned the papers there was nothing that Court staff could do to progress the case.

I have made a formal complaint to the Court about the way in which this case has been dealt with and about the failure to the Court to reply to emails or phone messages. I have submitted the complaint via the Resolver service with the Court Service use. I am not very impressed with this service so far. I have provided details of my complaint and indicated how I am feeling using emoji's as requested but so far the problem is unresolved.

Meanwhile I have obtained an amendment to the Legal Funding Certificate so that I can spend a large amount of (what should be) unnecessary tax payer's money on an application to the High Court to stay enforcement there because Central London County Court have been unable to deal with the application which I made to them 6 weeks ago. In the absence of an Order from Central London County Court staying enforcement the landlord has transferred the case to the High Court for fast enforcement.

The problems with this case do not appear to be an isolated glitch amidst an otherwise efficient service. I sent another appeal to the Court on 17 May. I have heard nothing back yet despite sending an email asking for an update on 7 June.

I would be grateful if anyone else experiencing service failure type problems with the County Courts would send me the details so that I can post them on here. You can leave a comment or email at wflack63@gmail.com. I will keep the cases anonymous to maintain client confidentiality. I think that it would to have as many accounts of these difficulties in one place as possible n case people in case anyone ever needs persuading of the extent of the problem and the need for urgent remedial action.

Is The Public Sector Equality Duty A Paper Tiger When It Comes To Housing Law?

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The simple answer to this question based on recent case law seems to be - Yes when it comes to possession proceedings but No when it comes to Homeless Appeals.

A paper tiger is something which appears to be strong but does not really have any power. The term was famously used by Mao Tse-Tung to describe American foreign policy in 1956. 

The Public Sector Equality Duty is set out at Section 149 of the the Equality Act 2010.  The Gov.UK Website page Equality Act 2010 Guidance states that it means that public bodies have to consider all individuals when carrying out their day-to-day work – in shaping policy, in delivering services and in relation to their own employees. It also requires that public bodies have due regard to the need to:

  • eliminate discrimination
  • advance equality of opportunity
  • foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities

It would seem therefore that where it can shown that a tenant is suffering from a disability which might give rise to their public sector landlord taking possession against them the tenant might have a defence to the claim in that the landlord can hardly be eliminating discrimination if they are evicting someone in circumstances which amount to discrimination. Recent cases show that this is not however likely to be case.

The first weakness of the duty is that it is not a duty to take any action or desist from other actions. It is only a duty to have regard to the above matters. Thus the duty can be discharged if the landlord can show that they have had due regard to the duty but have gone on to take possession action anyway.

The second weakness is that even if the landlord cannot demonstrate that they had due to regard to the disability of the tenant before issuing possession proceedings or even later they can resolve this problem by having regard later on. This was what was held in the case of Powell v Dacorum (2019)

The third weakness is that a breach of the duty will not give rise to a defence if the landlord can show that even if they'd had due to regard to the disability of the tenant it would not have made any difference and that they would still have taken possession action anyway. This was what was held in the case of Steven Forward v Aldwyck Housing Group LTD (2019)

The approach taken in Powell and Forward was endorsed by the High Court on hearing the appeal in London and Quadrant Housing Trust v Patrick (2019)

Following these three cases there seems little prospect of success for a defence based on the Public Sector Equality Duty provided the landlord can demonstrate by the time of the trial that due regard has been had to the duty.

The ease with which the Public Sector Equality Duty can be discharged by landlords does make it appear to be a paper tiger when it comes to possession proceedings. It should however not be dismissed so quickly in other areas of housing law such as homelessness reviews and appeals. Local authorities were found to have made errors of law in failing to discharge the duty when dealing with disabled applicants in the cases of Lomax v Gosport (2018) and Kannan v Newham (2019).

The lack of bite for the Public Sector Equality Duty in possession should not actually be seen as as major problem for tenants. This is because the the Equality Act 2010 provides tenants with another more powerful weapon in the form of Section 15 of the Act which provides that a person discriminates against another if they treat them unfavourably as a result of something arising in consequence of their disability. This means that where a tenant is able to show that they have a disability which has given rise to possession action they will have a good prospect of being able to persuade a Judge that they have a good defence to the claim because it is based on unlawful discrimination. The landlord will then only be able to evict them if they can show that the discrimination is justified as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

I hope to deal with Section 15 and when discrimination will be lawful another day but for now I will point out that the availability of Section 15 as a protection for disabled tenants means that it will generally only be in pretty much hopeless cases that the tenant has to rely on Section 149 and the Public Sector Equality Duty because they are unable to rely on Section 15. In order for the landlord to have persuaded the Court that the discrimination was lawful for the purposes of Section 15 they will have had to carry out an assessment which should meet the requirements of Section 149 and be able to show that they have had due regard. Where a Judge has held that discrimination is permissable for the purposes of Section 15 it is hard to see a Judge going on to find that the landlord has not had due regard to the issues set out in Section 149.

Section 15 does not arise as easily in homelessness cases where the council is not taking action against the applicant but has reached a decision based on consideration of their circumstances. The issues to be considered in Section 149 will therefore be of much greater importance.

Service Problems at Central London County Court

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This post is to update anyone who is not already aware of the staffing shortages at Central London County Court and of the quality of service problems which arising from them.

In the case below I have not received any substantive response to my request for Central London County Court to an appeal which the Court has had for a month now since 2 May. The Court has also failed to reply to emails and telephone messages about the appeal.

On 2 May 2019 I sent papers to Central London County Court by email requesting that they issue an appeal against the Possession Order made in the Brentford County Court.  This was necessary because Brentford like many other County Courts no longer has any Circuit Judges to hear appeals from District Judges.  I included in my appeal papers a request for an Interim Order suspending enforcement of the Possession Order pending the outcome of the appeal. 

As at 28 May 2019 I had received no response from Central London County Court to my request or replies to the emails which I sent asking for an update other than standard automatic responses acknowledging receipt of my emails.  Meanwhile the landlord's solicitor informed me that he was arranging to attempt to enforce the Order through the High Court.  This meant that there was a risk of High Court bailiffs turning up at my client’s home at short notice.  I therefore telephoned Central London County Court to try and find out what could be done as a matter of urgency.  After waiting in a queue (I was number 36 the queue at the start of the call) for about ten minutes. I spoke to a member of staff who said that she would arrange for somebody to call me. 

Having heard nothing by 29 May 2019 I called the Court again.  I spoke to another member of staff.  She was able to efficiently confirm that she could see my request for an appeal on the computer system and that I had called the previous day.  She mentioned however that due to staffing levels at Central London County Court it was not expected that staff would respond for up to 4 days. She said that she did not work at Central London County Court itself but worked in another Ministry of Justice office outside London to which calls were transferred.  She said that her role was to pass messages on to Central London County Court asking them to respond directly to the callers. She said that the that if Central London County Court failed to respond to two such messages they would put the caller straight through to a member of staff at Central London County Court. She said that because of the staff shortages facing Central London County Court they were not expected to respond to a message for up to four days. I have still received no response and will therefore call back for a third time on Monday. My worry is that even then I won't be able to speak to anyone who can do anything more than pass a message on internally to someone who is supposed to be dealing with my appeal but isn't.

It is very worrying that Central London County Court is taking so very long to issue urgent court papers and routinely failing to respond to correspondence.  This is not the only case in which I have received no response to letters and emails sent to Central London County Court.  It is frustrating that Judges at Central London County Court still consider themselves entitled to impose very high standards on those appearing before them in terms of deadlines for taking steps in preparation of cases for trial or in refusing to extend deadlines or give permission to appeal out-of-time.  It would be helpful if they could recognise the difficulties which Legal Aid Lawyers face in the same way as the Courts due to funding levels nowadays and which prevent us from complying with the high standards which they still seem to consider to be appropriate when applying them to other organisations than their own.

First Podcast - Featuring Daniel Bacon

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This is the first podcast I have uploaded.

The guest/co-host is Daniel Bacon of D Bacon Legal Blog

Please do not judge this first episode too harshly. We are both new to podcasting and will hopefully get better over future episodes.

In this episode we talk about the launch of this podcast and about Daniel's blog.

Links to Things Mentioned

Nearly Legal Blog
Front Line Hackney Blog

How The Legal Aid Means Test Excludes People With No Accommodation From Receiving Free Advice and Assistance

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Legal Aid is supposed to be available for homeless people who need assistance in refusal by a local authority to provide them with accommodation which they are entitled to. 

The problem with the means assessment system is that a homeless person who is not receiving a passported benefit or an extremely low wage is likely to be ineligible for assistance. This is because they do not have any housing costs to be deducted from their income when calculating their disposable income.  If they had temporary accommodation which they were liable to pay rent for this rent could be taken into account but once they are homeless there is no housing cost and their disposable income goes up to a level which will often take them over the limit of £733.00 per month. 

To illustrate this; I was approached recently by a woman who had just been evicted from her temporary accommodation along with her daughter because the council had found her to be intentionally homeless. She needed help challenging this decision. Unfortunately, if she had come to see me before her temporary accommodation was cancelled she would have been eligible but once she had been evicted her wages and tax credits left her with a  monthly disposable income of £1,286.32. This took her over the eligibility limit by £553.33 which was less than her rent had been. This has the absurd effect that someone who has no accommodation and is therefore in more pressing need for the assistance is unable to get the assistance which they would have got before she lost her temporary accommodation. 

I wondered if there might be some way around this problem. I sent an email to the Legal Aid Agency’s Contact Civil Team which read:

I have recently been asked to help a homeless single parent. Who had been evicted from her temporary accommodationprovided by the council and is staying with a friend

She is working in a low paid job and would have been eligible for assistance under Legal Help up to the point when she was evicted from her temporary accommodation. However at that point she ceased to have any housing costs. This meant that the deductions from her income were reduced and her disposable income was increased above the eligibility limit.

The effect of the above is that whilst the client would have been eligible for assistance up to the point when she was evicted from her temporary accommodation she was not eligible once she had actually been evicted. I trust that you will agree that it cannot have been the intention of those who prepared the eligibility rules to exclude someone as a result of their need for assistance becoming more acute as in this case and that they should be penalised for having no accommodation which was the reason they sought assistance. Please can you let me know if there is any way in which a provider can assist a homeless person such as this under the Legal Help scheme or why it is considered appropriate for them not to receive assistance.

I received the following response. 

Legal aid is available to fund cases that are within the scope of the civil scheme (as per LASPO Act), for those who are financially eligible and whose case satisfies the merits test.  The means test is laid down in the regulations to determine who is financially eligible for funding; the limited circumstances where a waiver applies are set out in regulations 9-12 of the Civil Legal Aid (Financial Resources and Payment for Services) Regulations 2013, a waiver does not appear to be applicable in this case . You have indicated your concern that the individual in question does not qualify within the income limit based on her current income and outgoings.  Your concern is noted. With any scheme which assists vulnerable people, there will appear to be ‘hard cases’ at the margin.

This response can be summarised as confirming that there is no way round the fact that someone can lose their entitlement to Legal Aid based on their means as a result of losing their temporary accommodation. It is good to know that my concern has been noted by the Legal Aid Agency but disappointing that it is not shared. I guess its not the responsibility of staff at Contact Civil to agitate for defects in system to be repaired.

I think that there is a clear need here for the means test rules to be amended so as to allow people who have no accommodation to avoid being penalised for having no housing costs. This could be achieved by treating such people in the same way that people on passported benefits are treated. The Legal Help form could ask whether the applicant is on a passported benefit and/or has no accommodation of their own. 

When Is Someone Not "Properly" In Receipt of a Passported Benefit For Legal Aid Means Assessment Purposes?

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This question came up last week when I was going through the bank statement of a new client whom I proposed to advise and assist under the Legal Help Scheme. She was receiving Income Support and entitled to be treated as receiving a passported benefit for Legal Aid purposes.

What worried me when going through the bank statement was that whilst there was clear evidence of payment in of Income Support there were other payments in such as child support and some other payments. I was not sure how high the level of this additional income would have to be before somebody at the Legal Aid Agency might refuse payment for the work on this case because I was said to have failed to adequately consider whether the client was property in receipt of Income Support.

I found an explanation what properly in receipt of a passported benefit means at paragraph 4 on page 12 of the Legal Aid Agency's Means Assessment Guidance. This states:-

The passporting benefit must be currently in payment (e.g. the individual will not be passported if the benefit claim is still being processed or if payments are suspended pending a fraud investigation) and the individual must be legally entitled to the payment. If the passporting benefit is in payment but there is a suspicion that an individual may not be “properly” in receipt—e.g. representations have been made against the individual’s means or the individual’s own declarations have indicated that relevant facts such as a partner, employment, sources of income and capital etc. have not been advised to the benefit office—their legal aid claim will not be passported.

The answer would therefore appear to be whether the information provided by the client gives rise to a suspicion that they are not entitled to the passported benefit which they are receiving. Following the withdrawal of Legal Aid for Welfare Benefits work the Legal Aid Agency can not expect most of us to have a specialist eye for possible non entitlement. I think therefore that as long was we can record that we have no suspicion that the information provided by the client means that they are not entitled to the passported benefit which they are receiving we should not be at risk of not getting paid.

I think that the danger signs when looking at the bank statements or other information provided by the client will be situations such as:-

  • The client's net income for the month up to the date when they sign the Legal Help is more than the net income limit for non passported benefits  - ie £733.00.
  • The client's wages are more than the Universal Credit Work Allowances.

This is not meant to be definitive advice on this question. I would welcome any comments on here or by email to wflack63@gmail.com If anyone would like to correct what I have said or add to it.

 

List of London Organisations Who Can Carry Out Legal Aid Work On Housing Cases

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I have had a list of solicitors which I give to people whose cases I can't take for a while. I have now put it on the site .  You can access it via the link at the top of the page.

I hope to add to the list so please let me know the contact details of anyone you think should be added. I can amend the list to include organisations outside London if I get the details.

At the bottom of the page is a link to the list as a Google Document which you should be able to print or copy. Please let me know if you can't.

Oh Dear....Devolved Powers Not Actually Back For Most Homelessness Children Act Judicial Reviews

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Two weeks ago I posted what I thought was the good news that the Legal Aid Agency had reinstated devolved powers for solicitors to grant Emergency Legal Funding Certificates for Judicial Reviews involving homelessness children under the Children Act 1989. It turns out that this was not correct.

I was confident that devolved powers had been reinstated for Children Act cases because a member of staff at the Legal Aid Agency had telephoned me and told me that they had. This was in response to an application which I had made for the Legal Aid Agency to grant an Emergency Legal Funding Certificate. This was for a child who was sleeping on the floor of a living room with a sibling and his mother. They had all been asked to leave but they were not at risk of being put out on the street within the next 48 hours. On these facts I was advised by the caller from the Legal Aid Agency that I would be able to grant an Emergency Legal Funding Certificate myself. I passed this information on through my post.

Soon after sending out my post I received a message from the Housing Law Practitioners Association (HLPA) pointing out that although the Legal Aid Agency had stated that devolved powers had been restored they had also set conditions for exercising those powers which means that in many if not most cases it would not be possible to exercise them. These conditions can be found in the tables of delegated functions published by the Legal Aid Agency. These included  The Civil Legal Aid Procedure Regulations September 2018 which stated that Emergency Legal Funding Certificates could only be granted where the child was street homeless or at risk of street homelessness  within 48 hours. The actual wording is at the bottom of page 8. Here is a screenshot. This condition means that unless the child is on the street already or will be in 48 hours a solicitor cannot grant an Emergency Legal Funding Certificate. This will cause problems where the child is in highly unsuitable accommodation but is not on the street, or as in my case where they have been asked to leave but the person who they are staying with has agreed to allow them to stay with them whilst proceedings are issued.

The HLPA message went on to point out that another table Civil Legal Aid Financial Resources September 2018 stated that devolved powers could only be issued where the client was in receipt of a passported benefit and had savings of less than £2,000.00. As far as I am aware children cannot claim passported benefits which means that according to this rule it will not be possible to for solicitors to grant Emergency Legal Funding Certificates for any children under devolved powers even if they are street homeless or threatened with street homelessness within the next 48 hours. It won't be a problem if the client is the parent and they are receiving a passported benefit. This will of course exclude all adults with no recourse to public funds who will also be unable to claim a passported benefit.

The HLPA message stated that the above issues had been raised with the Legal Aid Agency and that clarification would hopefully be provided soon. I also telephoned the Legal Aid Agency last Wednesday and asked if somebody could ask the person who called me to check the above points and let me know if they would still advise me that I should have used devolved powers. I was able to speak to a senior case worker but not to the person who called me. I was told that I would be contacted with an answer. I had not received one by the end of the week.

I hope that the Legal Aid Agency will correct what I also hope will be recognised as errors in the above tables so that solicitors can exercise devolved powers again in respect of Children Act  Judicial Reviews. In the meantime the risk of not being paid for the work carried out means that it will be wiser for solicitors to ignore my earlier post and not grant Emergency Legal Funding Certificates ourselves but to ask the Legal Aid Agency do to do.

 

What To Do When A Client Does Not Keep In Touch

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This may seem like common sense to most experienced legal case workers but I was asked the same question last week by two different people who were new to this line of work. I have therefore turned my answer into a post in case there are more people out there wondering about this issue.

The question I was asked was along the lines of, "Mr Bloggs has not been touch since I met with him two weeks ago. He has not replied to my phone messages and emails. Shall I just leave things and take no further action on this case?"

The simple answer to the question is "No. Don't just leave things.". The longer answer is that you need to take steps to ensure that you can demonstrate that you have tried to contact the client; you have warned them that their case will be closed if you do not hear from them and that you have notified them that you are taking no further action. If you do not do this you are at risk of the client re-appearing in the future complaining that they thought you were supposed to be helping them and its your fault that they have been evicted or whatever it is that has happened to them. The worst example of this is the call from the client at Court just before a hearing is about to start asking why nobody is there to represent them. If you protest at that stage that you did not know about the hearing because they had not been in touch there is a risk that they will say that they assumed you had also received notice of the hearing and were dealing with it. If they complain about you not having worked on their case after they disappeared the person dealing with the complaint will ask you for the evidence that you told them that you were not helping them. If you don't have this there is a risk that you will be found to be at fault. To avoid this I suggest that you take the following four steps.

** Note ** I  refer to sending letters in the steps below. If you have an email address for the client you might just want to send emails. I suggest that to be on the safe side you send a letter in the post and send a copy by email as well. I also suggest that you send a text message at each step as well.

I have created template text or the letters and text messages which can be found accessed via this link. 

Step 1 - Send a Letter Asking For Instructions
You should send the client a letter asking them to contact you and provide instructions. Diarise a date for 14 days later (or sooner depending on the urgency) to review the case so as to to move on to Step 2 if there is no response.

Step 2 - Send A Reminder Letter
You should send a further letter enclosing or forwarding the first letter and asking the client to provide the instructions requested. Another text message should also be sent. Set another diary date for Step 3.

Step 3 - Send A File Closure Warning Letter
If you have still received no response send a further letter enclosing the first letter and referring to that and the reminder and repeat the request for instructions. This time include a paragraph stating that if you do not hear from the client after 7 days you will close their file on the basis that they no longer require instructions and that you trust this is agreeable to them. If you are on the record as acting for them warn them that you will notify the Court and any other parties that you are no longer representing them. If they have a Legal Funding Certificate state that you will be asking the Legal Aid Agency to cancel their Legal Funding Certificate. A further text message should also be sent. Even though you gave them 7 days you should normally set diary 14 days if the matter is not urgency then move on to....

Step 4 Send A File Closure Letter
Send a final letter advising the client that you have closed your file and that you will be taking no further action in relation to their case.

If you follow these steps you should be ok. You will can rely on your copies of the letters which you have sent as showing that you had taken all reasonable steps to notify the client that you were closing their file and not working on their case.

A slight variant of the above scenario is where you have agreed to help a potential client but you have asked them to take steps such as providing you with documents or proof of Legal Aid eligibility before you actually open a file. In situation you do not have a File or Case to close. You might not even think of them as your client yet. Nevertheless the potential client may not realise this so it is best to follow a shorter procedure for that they are not left in any doubt. I suggest that a letter is sent confirming the request for instructions and/or information and stating you will not be able to take on their case without this. If they have not responded within a week a further letter should be sent advising that you are not taking the case on.

The Legal Aid Agency Need To Publicly Address Their Mistakes

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This month’s Legal Action magazine reports on two instances of the Legal Aid Agency getting things spectacularly wrong as a result of its staff not knowing what they were doing.

The first concerned the way in which the Legal Aid Agency mismanaged the provision of Legal Aid to South West London Law Centres in representing Wendy Lomax in challenging the unlawful failure of Gosport BC to recognise that she was entitled to be treated as homeless for the purposes Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996. The second was the decision to cut the number of supplies able to work on the Duty Solicitor service for housing at the County Courts which led to the Legal Aid Agency losing a Judicial Review. I only have space here to talk about the first case. I would like to come back to the Duty Rota issue another time.

The Court of Appeal Judgment in the Lomax case has been widely reported as a very important decision on the issue of when somebody is entitled to be treated as homeless because their home is not reasonable for them to continue to occupy. Here is a link to the Nearly Legal post on the case. As a result of errors on the part of the Legal Aid Agency the case was nearly prevented from reaching the Court of Appeal.

When the Law Centre sought to appeal against what proved to be an incorrect County Court decision in Ms Lomax’s case the application to amend the Legal Funding Certificate was dealt with so badly by the Legal Aid Agency that the Law Centre had to take the risk of covering the costs of lodging the application to request permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal so as to ensure that Ms Lomax did not miss the 21 day time limit for doing so. The Legal Aid Agency errors in that case included:-

  • Wrongly refusing the application because permission to appeal had not been applied for in the County Court.
  • Wrongly refusing to consider the amendment without a transcript of the judgment. The Law Centre did not have the funding in place (because the Legal Funding Certificate had not been amended) to pay for the transcript and did not have time to apply for it.
  • Wrongly deciding that Ms Lomax did not have a good prospect of success. A specialist barrister had advised that she did have a good prospect. This was simply ignored until the Law Centre were able to appeal to an independent decision maker. By then though the 21 day time limit for appealing had expired. Had the Law Centre not taken the risk of issuing the appeal without waiting for the Legal Aid Agency to amend the Legal Funding Certificate Ms Lomax might not have been able to pursue her appeal.

These errors arose against a background of a member of the public living in Dorset having to instruct a solicitor based in London due to the lack of local solicitors who could deal with the case. The Legal Aid Agency cannot be blamed for the cuts in Legal Aid which are the primary cause of the shortage of available specialist solicitors but they are in my opinion responsible for making things worse by operating in a hostile and ill informed manner. This approach leaves the Legal Aid Agency unable to recognise the errors which they make and to improve the service which they provide.

Ms Lomax’s solicitor is quoted as rightly stating that the Legal Aid Agency’s erroneous understanding of procedure was tantamount to an obstruction to the administration of justice. I would go further and say that the problem is not simply an erroneous understanding. It stems a failure by the Legal Aid Agency to adequately manage their work. Someone who knew what they were doing should have spotted what was going wrong but they didn't

The scale of the problem at the Legal Aid Agency can be seen from their response to this story which is also quoted in the Legal Action article. I set it out here in full.

“Legal Aid is available right across the country and it is imperative that those entitled have sufficient access regardless of where they live. That is precisely why reviews take place and we rapidly address any issues which arise in specific cases.”

This obvious nonsense is attributed to the anonymous Legal Aid Agency spokesperson who we usually find putting in an appearance at the end of articles like this reporting Legal Aid Agency failings. The response is nonsense because Legal Aid is not available right across the country. There are large areas such as where Ms Lomax lived where there are no solicitors available to take on a case like hers. It is of course imperative that those entitled to Legal Aid have access but the whole point here is that Ms Lomax did not have access at a critical point in her case because staff at the Legal Aid Agency wrongly refused her Legal Aid funding which she was entitled to. It is not clear from the quote whether the Legal Aid Agency have actually carried out a review of what took place in this particular case. If they did they have kept the outcome of the review and the way in which they have addressed the issues arising to themselves. The fact that the Legal Aid Agency can come up with such an inappropriate response can only mean that problems of this kind are likely to continue.

What should happen in a case like this is that a named official from the Legal Aid Agency should publicly apologise for the service provided, and explain how the errors were made.  They should outline what steps will be taken to prevent errors of this kind happening again and identify who will be responsible for ensuring that those steps are taken. Recognising and taking ownership of errors is a first step towards ensuring that they are not repeated.