Law: A redefinition of justice: A new report is urging a radical rethink of the structure and public funding of legal services, writes Sharon Wallach

A report published this week calls for big changes in the administration of legal services in this country. A Strategy for Justice: publicly funded legal services in the 1990s, by the Legal Action Group (LAG), suggests that a fundamental restructuring is needed to meet consumers' needs.

Government spending on legal services this year will rise to more than pounds 1bn, the report says. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay, has said that legal aid expenditure is to be strictly controlled, and solicitors are anxious about levels of pay. As a result, says Roger Smith, the LAG's director, 'public discussion has largely focused on only one issue: public expenditure versus remuneration of legal aid practitioners'.

But this is the wrong question, the report says. Public funding of legal services should be a central government priority because they 'provide an important counterbalance to the evident inequalities in society', and thereby help to secure equal access to justice for all.

The LAG's criticisms of the mechanics of legal services and, by implication, of the profession's preoccupations, will carry weight. The group, established in 1971 to improve legal services, is widely respected, not least for its reliance on an approach that combines idealism with realism.

One of its more startling recommendations is a proposal to replace the Lord Chancellor's Department with a House of Commons minister who would assume responsibility for administration of the courts and legal aid; a new commission would take over supervision of judicial appointments.

Another casualty would be the Legal Aid Board, to be replaced by a legal services commission with wide-ranging duties. One would be provision of programmes to educate people about their legal rights and obligations, an area the LAG identifies as a priority 'in the context of an increasing concern with the concept of citizenship'.

The report highlights the lack of coherence in central and local government's provision of legal services. What needs to be addressed, it says, is the route to a more rational policy. This could be brought about by shaping the provision of legal services to suit the needs of their consumers rather than their suppliers, and by co-ordinating services nation-wide. 'The current position - in which the distribution of solicitors' offices and advice agencies is dictated by market forces and the vagaries of local authority generosity and solvency - is self-evidently unsatisfactory,' the report comments.

A comprehensive and coherent system would also offer services that are accessible and of appropriate type and quality. This would involve a review of services, leading to a 'mixed model' comprising 'the best combination' of legal aid practitioners, law centres and advice agencies, and the experimental employment of salaried lawyers by the legal services commission.

The LAG recommends the extension of regional legal services committees throughout the country, the establishment of a network of community legal centres specialising in social welfare law and, most important, a clear national policy. 'Local authorities should be under a statutory duty to provide an adequate service; the cost should be recognised as essential by central government.'

The LAG knows that its strategy involves a radical rethink of publicly funded legal services. It stipulates two conditions for such a review, in the light of what it calls 'the very real danger of a series of unrelated and largely unconsidered cuts to services resulting from the Lord Chancellor's Department's struggle to meet the demands of the Treasury'. These are that a fundamental review should take place only in the context of a commitment to a broader approach and of a 'search for improvement', not as a cost-cutting exercise.

More people than ever are using legal aid, although eligibility has fallen substantially, the report points out. And the significance of legal aid as a source of income for the legal profession is undeniable. In 1990-91 it contributed more than 11 per cent of the pounds 5.2bn turnover of all solicitors; in the latest figures available from the Bar (from 1989), legal aid accounted for 27 per cent of barristers' total fee income.

The question of rates of pay for legal aid work, currently a subject of fierce debate, needs to be tackled head on, not least to ensure an adequate level of service, the report says. It calls on the Law Society to state its expectations of what a legal aid practitioner, working an efficient and set number of hours a week, should receive. The Government should then set comparable levels of pay, perhaps based on the salaries of government-employed lawyers, with an added element for the responsibility of running a business. This formula would maintain an indirect link with market rates.

But ultimately, the report says, however the profession is paid, 'there must be enforceable codes of practice that inhibit bad practice in the preparation of the cases of legally aided clients'.

The Law Society is criticised for its reluctance to take robust action on quality regulation. A greater commitment on the society's part would, the report says, help it to maintain its position as the guarantor of its members' independence, as well as boost its bargaining position with the Government on remuneration. The report reiterates its view that the society should relinquish control over its complaints procedure.