I attended a consultation event yesterday with the LSC regarding the above. Anyone else out there been to one, and what are your thoughts?

Fri 26-May-06 11:51 AM by Paul Treloar

Bit of a double edged sword, would be a simple way of describing some of Lasa's thoughts.

We welcome proposals to reduce the administrative burdens and master/servant relationships that currently exist between the Commission and legal aid suppliers, if the light-touch, more grown-up relationships can be delivered in the future (we do have doubts as to whether a similar level of resources can or will be put into the PSS roll-out compared to the pilots, simply because experience suggests that pilots are usually better resourced).

However, our concerns are that no true not-for-profit (NfP) suppliers were included in the pilot, so it is untested waters in that respect. Further, it would appear from discussions, presentations, the PSS consultation paper and the new CLS Strategy paper, that many NfP agencies will only be able to secure contracts if they come together in a consortium.

The emphasis in the shifting risk and sanctions very much onto the legal aid supplier has grave implications in a partnership approach, in our opinion. This is because it appears that the lead supplier in such a consortium would effectively take the burden for maintaining performance and quality of all partner agencies, which is quite a risk for a not-for-profit agency, who will not be able to use fee-paying work to balance up losses caused by other suppliers who do not come up to scratch.

We worry more generally that the move to bigger suppliers working across a wider variety of areas of law mitigates against many NfP agencies, who are usually smaller and less well resourced than large solicitors firms. The Legal Services Regulation White Paper published yesterday is laying a path towards "Tesco-law" or even more worryingly, "C(r)apita-law". If NfP agencies are to be expected to expand if they do secure Preferred Supplier status, it will be essential that core costs and related costs to partnership working, for example, are allowed for under new payment regimes, which seems unlikely to occur.

We think the proposals could also lead to competition between agencies, simply because the language is about managing markets of suppliers, and this again mitigates against partnerships approaches.

The scrapping of the Quality Mark is also causing concern, especially where it has been taken up by other funders as a proxy requirement for giving an agency funding - advice UK have reported some of their members being unable to secure funding for this reason. Further, the QM has been accepted as having a positive effect on the standards of advice and information provision in many ways, and killing it off due to the desire to concentrate resources on Specialist-level suppliers feels like a bit of a backward step.

Phew, that's all off the top of my head, currently trying to get this all down in a LASA response to the consultation - would be extremely interested to hear other people's thoughts on this initiative - I have written a briefing paper on the main points, if you don't have time for the whole document.

I agree with much of what you say, Paul. At the consultation event I asked about dealing with client's who have very specific probems. I work for a small mental health charity and most of our client's have severe mental health problems and it is, at times, very difficult to obtain information from them. Therefore it takes longer to find out how their illness affects them, compared with someone who has physical disabilities when comleting a DLA form, for example.
They seemed to be surprised by this and to mention it in my written response to the consultation. We only have one contract for welfare benefits.

At the recent Advice Services Alliance conference, Karl Demian from the LSC gave a workshop on the new contract conditions that will soon be introduced - he definitely indicated that the Commission were aware that different areas of law, client groups and locations could all affect the standard rates payable - however, as with many civil service bodies, it could well be the case that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing so it is worth raising in your PSS response.

On the point of having a contract in one area of law, it is clear from the CLS strategy that the LSC want suppliers who can advise across a variety of areas of law in the long run - again, this isn't something that is explicitly dealt with in the PSS strategy but I recommend raising any issues around expansion here as well, to make sure the messages get across.

We gained the impression that LSC don't know how to fit most NfP into the glorious new vision. In particular how NfPs with only one or two contracts (which may only be 0.5 post equivilent etc) fit into prefered supplier criteria in geographical areas where NfPs are probably the only current suppliers in categories such as benefits, debt or employment.

Equally they appear to have no real strategy for working with other core funders such as local authorities, nor for dealing with the consequences of withdrawing small LSC contracts from independent advice agencies (and where do CABx fit in?).

How many advice agencies have the capacity to expand to achieve prefered supplier status? What are the consequences for FREE advice if the majority of an agencies funding means access to advice is means tested? What would the Charities Commission have to say about agencies grouping together in consortia for funding purposes?

Have they really thought this through?

I get the impression that a great deal of thought has gone into this strategy, Peter, but I also agree that most of the thinking does not appear to have embraced the implications for NfP agencies, other than encouragements to join up with other services and bid under "lead supplier" models.

This neatly shifts the risk for a number of contracts in a number of areas of law lying with the LSC to one unified contract and the risk for all agencies involved in delivering under that contract onto the lead agency.

If you have a look at the tender documents for the Community Legal Advice Centre in Leicester (see rightsnet policy news story, Two new Community Advice Centres, 2 June 2006), it is clearly modelled on the Preferred Supplier proposals - we have been assured that all responses will be be considered when the final PS strategy is formulated but I would be extremely surprised if there are any radical changes to the current proposals.

I can see that a strategy to 'drive out' small suppliers would be an 'efficient' policy for LSC.

But unless there are large commercial (or NfP) suppliers ready to move in to a geographic area and become the preferred (only)supplier / lead supplier I wonder how many NfP are ready and willing to take on this role. Clearly it will vary from place to place - but if no one steps into the preferred supplier role it could mean the loss of all suppliers in an area - an increase in 'advice desserts'.

Another funder in this area had raised issues of joint funding bids or amalgamation to provide one or two large suppliers of advice. Although it did not progress far, issues around the ability of individual charities (as most advice centres are) to undertake joint funding applications was seen as a possible stumbling block due to the terms of the individual articles of association etc limiting their actions and/or service delivery to a locally defined geographic area / client group. Whilst all this might be resolvable in the long term, subject to approval from the Charities Commission, in may not have been simple, quick or cheap (leaving aside whether organisations actually wanted to go in that direction).

I just wonder how the 'lead supplier' model might tackle these issues in some areas where the likely candidate is an existing 'small' NfP which would then need to sub-contract to other small NfPs. It just gives the impression of a mine field of practical(let alone 'political') issues for the organisations concerned and which LSC have not considered in moving to this model.

Or maybe it is a synical policy to get rid of small advice agencies as suppliers of LSC funded work.

The scrapping of the Quality Mark is also causing concern, especially where it has been taken up by other funders as a proxy requirement for giving an agency funding - advice UK have reported some of their members being unable to secure funding for this reason. Further, the QM has been accepted as having a positive effect on the standards of advice and information provision in many ways, and killing it off due to the desire to concentrate resources on Specialist-level suppliers feels like a bit of a backward step

I've been unable to find a further reference to scrapping the QM (not subscribed to the news service). Does anyone have a link?

I'm sorry but I don't have the time now to find whether there are specific comments in related documents, but at the very least, it is implicit in the Preferred Supplier paper that the specialist QM will be phased out over the introduction of the scheme to become a proxy measurement rather than a necessary requirement for legal aid suppliers in the future.

Further, the scrapping of the QM at other levels was talked about by LSC staff at the recent ASA conference, and also in discussions that advice networks in London have had with our regional office. It would appear that there is an intention from the LSC that the networks should be looking at developing their own quality measurement standards for members.

I have also been told by the acting LSC Chief Exec that if other funders of advice services have requirements for a QM as a condition of funding, they should be considering auditing the QM themself.

Thanks for that Paul, appreciate it.

More of an update.

It would appear that in our area LA's are more aware of the preferred supplier agenda than local LSC staff. LA may be going down the tendering route as part of its own agenda (but with many similarities to Gateshead / Leicester tender criteria). It is clear many features of the direction the LSC are moving towards will be implemented sonner in LA future funding for independant advice. See May 2004 Legal Action article on advice services in Leicester for a foretaste of what may happen elswhere even before LSC and LA's make closer links re funding.