“and the legal aid investment of £350 secured £45,500 in increased benefits and debt write-offs.”

And sadly your point is also I think very much theirs too. The government will save £46k, not £350. Never mind that vulnerable people who have contributed all their life will be shafted for things they didn’t understand well enough to sort out.

Shoulda done it sooner. Shoulda been brighter. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. Its always different when one of their own family gets affected of course.

This is about power and crushing the lower classes !

This is about power and crushing the lower classes !

No, Mr Grunt.

It isn’t.

It may be a lot of things but it isn’t anything to do with that.

Pagar@3

Pagar Sir

Please educate me on this matter as it appears to be the case in one way or the other.

Thank You in advance for your time and assistance on this matter.

45 *thousand* pounds in arrears?

Where on earth was she living?

“Where on earth was she living?”

He worked for london law centre, so I’d guess London. It also says she was trying to move to a cheaper council house, so 2 years rent for something “not cheap” in london probably does work out at that.

A simple question here. Why should we be spending money on legal aid to benefit claimants when in both cases above the benefit system (you know, the thing that is meant to help the needy) should be able to sort the problem out?

My answer seems to be that the monolithic state bureaucracy has no incentive to actually help people (being target-driven etc), so rather than tackle the core problem the original post maintains we should instead sponsor legal aid (i.e. the state should pay people to challenge the state).

I’d prefer a system whereby such cases were dealt with properly in the first place – although to be fair, not sure if anyone has offered us that recently – rather than an unholy alliance of bureaucrats (please note, I am one myself so I know of what I speak) and lawyers.

A simple question occurs here. Why is it that the benefit system (which is meant to help those who need it) is so badly organised that it requires solicitors to help those in these situations? Surely the point of the benefit system was that it would do this itself?

My guess is that the current bureaucratic, centralised nature of the benefit system means that it is more focussed on targets than people. I don’t see how the solution to this is however to use legal aid to fund challenges to the state – that is just the state paying for someone else to challenge a state-funded decision which the state should surely be capable of sorting out without having to pay for solicitors.

I respect the work the poster does, but his argument that funding is necessary rather requires him to prove that there is no way that the state benefit system can actually do its job properly. Which of course will lead to the conclusion that the benefit system as it stands is flawed, and needs reforming…

As long as the State has laws over people those people deserve legal protection.

Why is it that the benefit system (which is meant to help those who need it) is so badly organised that it requires solicitors to help those in these situations?

Because every slight tweak to a universal benefit will add layers of complication. When you have interlocking benefits, each designed to aid specific parts of society, then the system will very quickly get too complicated for a lay person to understand. An exact parallel is the tax system – if you self assess you usually require an accountant.

As an evil City lawyer I have done a fair amount of CAB stuff pro bono in the High Court – not benefits stuff usually, but a fair amount of immigration and rent disputes. If you’re not a lawyer you have almost no chance of understanding even your own case.

@8 Amen.

@7 I imagine all those attempts to tighten up access to benefits in order to stop the 1% lost to benefit fraud probably doesn’t help out genuine claimants who have difficulties with forms.

‘Is this the kind of society we want to live in?”

With all due respects a few examples of extreme hardships and sicial injustices don’t paint us a full picture of the kind of society that WE want to live in. The headline question to this article is an important and interesting one. No comment has really addressed it. Doesn’t the left have any vision remaining? – Are they completely in thrall to ‘don’t rock the boat’ pragmatism? Small wonder the Tories get away with so much. Go on all ye leftie progressives- be bold and stick your heads above the parapet for once – dare to be Daniels – dare to have a goal..

Mulligrubs – sicial? You sausage fingered half wit. It’s a fair cop guv.

“Why is it that the benefit system (which is meant to help those who need it) is so badly organised that it requires solicitors to help those in these situations?”

Because decades of right wing media portrayals of the issue being primarily one of underserving scroungers have resulted in numerous botched attempts at reform and tightening restrictions on entitlements and eligibility. This is added to a climate of gatekeeping and bullying by benefits staff in denying people the remaining legal entitlements they have. Hence there are millions of pounds spent each year in legal disputes over benefits, sometimes over complex technical interpretations of law.

This must be the most under-reported part of the government’s “modernisation” programme.

It has very serious implications, and not just for the very poor. I suspect the main reason for it is not to deny benefits to confused old ladies (although that is one of many side effects), but to drive down costs to corporations by killing off the ability of the average worker to sustain a legal dispute with their employer.

The fact is that in the new climate, large companies (and wealthy people) will get lawyers. In numerous types of case – including some with devastating effects on people’s lives – people without money will not. There will now be numerous rules and laws that those with money can break at little or no risk, so long as the people affected are unlikely to be able to afford legal fees.

The power of the law in this country has just been severely downgraded, and not many people seem to have noticed, at least not yet.

jungle,

You have heard of no win, no fee? That was introduced to deal with exactly the problem you describe…

Cylux/Tim J,

You are presumably both correct (quite why a more complicated system is thought to reduce the chances of fraud or help anyone is another question I really need an answer to though – it makes no sense to me) – this is a side-effect of complications. That said, my ex-accountant used to deal with complications for me as part of the service, so why can’t the benefits system do the same for its ‘customers’/'clients’?

Shatterface,

I agree – but apart from the question of why law has to be so expert that you need a specialist to exercise your rights, there is also the minor point of whether this should be the first recourse to a system that is meant to help you unreservedly – as with benefits.

With the best will in the world (and there’s little evidence of this at the moment) the benefits system will always fail some people, some will always fall through the net because they’re socially or medically incompetent, or have some other problems. Or they have a less-than co-operative landlord (they do exist!). So there will always be a need to take these cases to court and as the people who fall into these traps are nearly always poverty-stricken there will be a need for help with legal costs.

Unless we accept that if some people do fall through the net and end up homeless and bankrupt, then it’s tough shit. Which is what Nathaniel Mathews is saying.

Could always open a few workhouses I guess.

Claire,

Maybe there will be cases that fall through the net (it helps if the net is regularly shaped and without gaping holes however), but is there not review systems in place? Do social services not have a role?

Recourse to lawyers is an expensive last option. I am confused as to why it is thought so necessary.

Watchmen,

You state:

“You have heard of no win, no fee? That was introduced to deal with exactly the problem you describe…”

If you attempt to go the no win no fee route, you will find that the lawyer’s decision to take on your case is based upon their likelihood of easy success than your right to representation. For example, in the incidence of auto insurance claims, the insurance companies set aside fixed amounts to deal with claims, and the no win no fee firms focus on that. This is aside from the fact that a number of these firms still require covenant or credit authorisation from their clients to move the case forward. Did you ever ask if the claimant fails who pays the costs of the court and other parties?
This is no substitute for the necessary legal access we all should enjoy. A great many people will suffer as result of the cutback.

Tim J “As an evil City lawyer I”

That explains everything.

I always said you were nothing more than a corporate butler, Serving your masters.

Why is it that the benefit system (which is meant to help those who need it) is so badly organised that it requires solicitors to help those in these situations? Surely the point of the benefit system was that it would do this itself?

You’ve never claimed benefits, have you? The benefits system is a Kafkaesque nightmare mainly run by petty tyrants, jobsworth bureaucrats and the sort of clueless incompetents who can’t even get a job with the local council. It’s nigh-on impossible to successfully navigate (without extensive practice) even for intelligent, well-educated people with a good idea of what they’re entitled to and lots of experience in interacting with bureaucracies.

For example, when you first go to sign on, they’ll hand you some forms which they’ll tell you are for applying for housing and council tax benefit. What nobody tells you (and you only learn after having been through the system before) is that those forms aren’t the forms for applying for those benefits – they simply request that the appropriate forms be sent to you, which, for some unimaginable reason, takes two months. (If you’re lucky and they don’t “lose” your forms, that is.) Once you actually get the real HB / CTB forms, you can expect it to take another two to three months for your claim to be processed. Now, did you remember to have 5 months worth of rent and council tax set aside before you lost your job? No? Sorry, you’ve just lost your right to pay your council tax in instalments. That’ll be a grand, right now, or we’ll take you to court. Yes, we know it’s our fault, but that’s a different department and I’m not authorised to alter the rules under any circumstances.

I have also heard first-hand from more than one former Job Centre employee that they are specifically and explicitly instructed not to volunteer useful information (such as “This isn’t the real HB claim form – you need to go to the HB office and ask for form 27B/6″) to claimants.

Mr G @ 4

Please educate me on this matter

Certainly.

A slogan is not an argument except by coincidence. Unfortunately your slogan lacked the merit of coincidence.

The benefits system is a Kafkaesque nightmare mainly run by petty tyrants, jobsworth bureaucrats and the sort of clueless incompetents who can’t even get a job with the local council. It’s nigh-on impossible to successfully navigate

Well said, Dunc. That is true.

It’s hard to see how the new universal credit can make matters worse (though the ultimate solution is a Citizens Basic Income).

Dunc,

I’m not sure why my question indicates I haven’t claimed benefits, since it was philosophical not about actual experiences. I’ve twice been registered unemployed if that helps – once on housing benefits – so I am aware of the nature of the system (the only friendly person I met working in the system was an old schoolfriend, and that was because of our prior acquitance – that the system seems to remove the desire to help from those working within it is surely indicative of something). What worries me is the repeated responses on this site that assume that this is problem we have to live with and that therefore the ramifications of this are also necessary…

I’m not sure why my question indicates I haven’t claimed benefits, since it was philosophical not about actual experiences. [...] What worries me is the repeated responses on this site that assume that this is problem we have to live with and that therefore the ramifications of this are also necessary…

Sorry, I was assuming that you were merely being naive, rather than stupid or disingenuous. I do apologise.

Whilst I agree that resolving the underlying problems with the benefit system would be the ideal solution (and would naturally reduce the legal aid bill as an inevitable side-effect), I do not for an instant suppose that getting rid of the one mechanism people currently have to hold the system to account is a good way of achieving that goal. If we can achieve that goal, these reforms to legal aid become unnecessary. If we can’t, they are actively counter-productive. And even the most perfect system imaginable would still be staffed by all-too-fallible human beings, so it would seem prudent to retain a mechanism which enables people to seek legal redress in the inevitable event that something goes wrong. Or do you subscribe to the idea that we should simply trust the government of the day (whoever that might happen to be) to get things exactly right 100% of the time?

@16

quite why a more complicated system is thought to reduce the chances of fraud or help anyone is another question I really need an answer to though – it makes no sense to me

The answer is unfortunately simple, it is only done so as to give the appearance of tackling those problems. Increasing the complexity of obtaining benefits has 2 main things that make it an attractive option to those in government:

1: It puts genuine claimants off from applying for the benefits to which they are entitled. The estimated amount of money saved from non-claiming massively dwarfs the estimated amount lost due to fraud. Plus the blame for this can firmly be attached to those not claiming, it’s “their fault” after all.

2: It can be pointed to as a measure that will apply pressure on “benefit scroungers” (aka legitimate benefit claimants that tabloids don’t like the look of) which always garners good headlines about ‘single mums with 8 kids and a council house getting the shaft’ from the Sun/Star/Mail etc, which is usually a nice easy popularity boost for incumbent governments. Plus, plenty of civil service staff will read those papers and agree with the editorial line, which of course will make them biased against those they are supposed to be assisting.

In short, cutting recourse to lawyers before even bothering to tackle the culture of, essentially, “the undeserving poor” and the ever creeping desire to prevent them from getting anything at all, is monstrous in the extreme. It leaves them with nothing.

Hello all- thanks for commenting. I’ve been a bit of a luddite until recently so blogging, facebook- it’s all a bit new. But the cuts coming are so massive that I’ve decided to get up out my mole-hole.

To answer some comments, I’ve worked as a solicitor for 16 years for Hackney Community Law Centre, in the East End of London. It’s one of the most frustrating places to work, and also the most rewarding.

Social support systems should work smoothly, but legal advice is important when they don’t. LA lawyers (by which I mean not only fully fledged barristers and solicitors, but also trainees, paralegals and volunteers) help solve many difficult social problems.

If you enjoyed then please check out Hackney Frontline, What makes me mad, sad, and glad to be human.