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Lamberts
Yard
High Street
Tonbridge
TN9 1ER
Our
Ref : DAC / AMS / 5409
15th
October 2003
Mr L Fiddler
Head of Policy Support Unit
The Department for Constitutional Affairs
DX 117000 London
Dear Mr Fiddler
DCA Consultation Paper ‘Delivering value for money
in The Criminal Defence Service’
I am very much obliged to you for your letter of 10 October
2003 and for the obvious time taken to research the situation
and respond fully to my letter.
I am happy to note there is nothing between us with regard to
the failure by the Minister to comply with the Code of Practice
on Written Consultations.
I can also appreciate that you may not be aware of why the
Minister failed to comply with the guidelines and what, if any,
statement would have accompanied the guidelines if the Minister
happened to deal with matters properly.
I am grateful for your efforts to try to explain what might have
been in the Minister’s mind but in view of the seriousness of
the default, I would have hoped that the Minister could explain
his own shortcomings. An
explanation for why he did not comply with the Government’s
guidelines would surely be appropriate together with full
reasons why a period of only eight weeks was allowed for
responses.
You may agree with me that if the Minister had, in fact, decided
that a shorter period than the normal twelve week minimum was
appropriate, then this would have highlighted in his own mind
the need to have an explanatory statement included in the
consultation document. It
may be an obvious inference to draw but the lack of explanatory
statement in the document may show that the Minister was, in
fact, unaware of the Government’s own guidelines in which case
any attempt to explain why the shorter period was allowed may be
both unhelpful and misleading.
I hope you do not take anything that I have said as criticism of
your response. I am
quite prepared to say again that I greatly appreciate the
efforts you have put in.
If we take my point one stage further, if the Minister did
realise that he was curtailing the minimum period for responses,
then it would seem that the failure to include the explanatory
statement in the document is all the more inexplicable.
There may have been a change of Minister responsible for the
Consultation document but no doubt the full notes dealing with
these issues remain available.
Indeed the former Lord Chancellor may be able to assist
with his own recollections.
I note what you say with regard to a considerable number of
responses. I can
confirm from my own knowledge that many practitioners in this
field were under a great deal of pressure to try to formulate
responses to the consultation document within the short period
that was allowed to us. I
have no doubt that the longer period for such an important
consultation would have resulted in more responses and will have
allowed additional consideration to be given to each
representation.
With regard to the statistical assertions that were untrue, I do
hope that you can assist me a bit further.
You will, of course, be aware that the assertion that we speak
of not only found itself being used by areas of the Press to
attack hard working legal aid lawyers like myself but it must
have been clear to the person drafting the document that this
would be the case.
Forgive me if I misunderstand aspects of your letter on this
point. It appears
that the assertion of which I speak is not now considered to be
of any real importance in the review of public funding in the
criminal sphere.
I am not sure I follow the logic on that and your further
guidance would be appreciated.
I may be accused of being too simplistic on the subject but
surely the very important and bold assertion that criminal
lawyers were being paid a lot more public money whilst assisting
significantly fewer members of the public must have been an
important argument for the way in which the Consultation
document was drafted. It
would also seem to have quite some affect upon the way in which
the Legal Services Commission immediately responded with their
own Consultation document.
The question may be rhetorical, but I wonder how the
Consultation document would have been drafted if it included the
different, and probably more accurate, comment that criminal
lawyers continue to give value for public money.
My understanding of what the true figures should be would
support that assertion, especially when compared with the
present position with public defender offices and taking into
account the almost non-existent increases in rates that we have
received since 1992.
Although the question I raise above is rhetorical, could I ask
that the Minister or Public Servant responsible re-draft the
particular paragraph that we are concerned with and let me have
a note of how it should have looked, together with access to all
of the statistics that will deal fully and accurately with the
issues that I raised in my original correspondence.
I did hesitate before writing to you at such length as you were
so kind to respond in the way that you did but I know you will
appreciate the significant concern that practitioners and
employers like myself continue to have with the way in which
public funding issues are addressed.
I look forward to hearing from you again and thank you in
anticipation of your continued kind attention.
Yours sincerely
Dennis Clarke
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