Page 112 - Reforming Benefits Decision-Making

mandatory reconsiderations he had requested on their behalf. He had not
provided the DWP with any new information and merely restated what the
claimant had already told the DWP in a more assertive way or using better
articulated representations.

4.32 However, any consideration of advice provision must be done against the
backdrop of the current legal advice landscape. The Legal Aid, Sentencing
and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) removed from the scope of legal
aid most cases involving welfare, housing, debt, employment and
immigration. The knock-on impacts of LASPO have been substantial, with a
322
huge decline in the number of not-for-profit legal advice centres and those
323
surviving having insufficient capacity to assist all those requiring help.
Given the acute need that many claimants have for benefits advice, we
recommend that legal aid funding be reinstated for early benefits advice.
We note that the Legal Support Action Plan that accompanied the LASPO
Post Implementation Review agreed that support at an early stage may help
people resolve problems more efficiently and effectively and committed “to
test the impact of early legal advice in promoting early resolution, we will
pilot face-to-face early legal advice in a specific area of social welfare law
and we will evaluate this against technological solutions, bearing in mind

322 From 3.226 in 2005 to 1,462 in 2015. See A. Ames et al., Survey of Not for Profit Legal Advice
Providers in England and Wales (Ministry of Justice, 2015). In 2012, 24% of recent users of legal
services surveyed by the Legal Services Consumer Panel accessed them at no cost. In 2018, that figure
dropped below 15%, Legal Services Consumer Panel, Tracker Survey 2018 – Briefing note: ohw
consumers are choosing legal services (2018).
323 More than half of the 700 people who responded to the Ministry of Justice consultation reported that
they had client groups who they were unable to help due to lack of resources, expertise, or because the
issue fell outside of their organisation’s remit. See A. Ames et al., Survey of Not for Profit Legal Advice
Providers in England and Wales (see n. 322 above). Of Citizens Advice Bureaux who previously held
legal aid contracts for specialist welfare benefits advice, 85 per cent reported a reduction in capacity to
provide specialist services. See Citizens Advice, Submission to the Justice Select Committee inquiry
into the impact of changes to civil legal aid under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of
Offenders Act 2012 (2014) p. 5. Reductions in the scope of legal aid have not been as severe in
Scotland and Northern Ireland, where LASPO does not apply. However, there have been reductions to
areas of assistance and a narrowing of eligibility criteria, as well as rising thresholds for financial
contributions by individuals, alongside the removal of funding contracts for specialised areas of work.
G. McKeever, M. Simpson and C. Fitzpatrick, Destitution and Paths to Justice (see n. 3 above) p. 47.

103