National Audit Office study of criminal legal aid in England and Wales
Background
The National Audit Office (NAO) is presently conducting an investigation of how effectively and efficiently the Legal Services Commission (LSC) is procuring criminal legal aid. Commonly referred to in the media as the “nation’s spending watchdog,” the NAO is entirely independent of government. It audits the accounts of all central government departments, and also produces around 60 value for money reports annually on key aspects of central government expenditure and activity. These reports typically result in an evidence session of the Committee of Public Accounts, the senior select committee of the House of Commons, at which the heads of government departments are held to account for their actions and expenditure.
To undertake this study we are undertaking a number of different types of fieldwork, two of which in particular directly involve the profession; namely a survey of firms of solicitors and a review of a sample of legal aid cases.
Survey
If your firm is under contract to the LSC to provide criminal legal aid services then your senior partner may well be contacted to participate in a telephone survey about legal aid during May 2009. This telephone survey is being conducted by the market research firm GFK/NOP on our behalf. Taking part in the survey will enable your firm to contribute significantly to our work.
File review of cases
A further important methodology that we are using for this study is a review of a sample of files of criminal legal aid work delivered by solicitors’ firms under contract. We have requested 500 files of cases of assistance and representation at the police station and in magistrates’ courts for claims made between April 2008 and December 2008. We believe that viewing these records of criminal legal aid work will enable us to obtain a well informed view of a number of the issues currently encountered by criminal legal aid solicitors and their clients, and your assistance in this matter is important to our study.
The Legal Services Commission has supplied the NAO with a record of all such work delivered in this period, and we have selected these files entirely at random using a stratified sampling statistical package called SPSS. We have requested 100 cases from five of the LSC’s regional offices in England and Wales namely Birmingham, Brighton, Liverpool, London, and Manchester. We have asked for files to be requested on our behalf by the Legal Services Commission because we considered that using an already-established route of contact was more practical both in terms of timing and in safeguarding the security of sensitive personal data. The LSC has played no role in selecting the cases and will play no role in reviewing them.
Further Information
Further information about the study can be found by following this link:
If you have any questions about either of the two pieces of work described above or the study generally please do not hesitate to contact me. My name is Jon Cable. I am the Audit Manager responsible forthis piece of work. My e-mail address is:
My work telephone number is 0207 798 7554. My mobile number is 07775 681436.
Thank you