Home > Publications > Selected cases — Parliamentary > Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations - October 2000 to March 2001 - Case No. C.501/99, C.902/00, C.1212/00, C.1234/00, C.1236/00, C.1504/00, C.1723/00 and C.1753/00
Selected Cases and Summaries of Completed Investigations - October 2000 to March 2001
Volume 4 - 2nd REPORT - SESSION 2001-2002
Chapter 2
LEGAL SERVICES COMMISSION
Case No: C.501/99
Failure to investigate properly representations about a person’s financial eligibility for legal aid
In June 1996 and throughout 1997 Mrs A made representations to the Legal Aid Board about the award of legal aid to her opponent in matrimonial proceedings, on the grounds that his income from business was greater than he had declared to the Legal Aid Assessment Office. In February 1998 the Board reassessed the opponent’s eligibility on the basis of business accounts produced in November 1996, and discharged the legal aid certificate. The Ombudsman found that laxity by the Assessment Office and the Board had meant that legal aid for the opponent which should have been stopped by the end of 1996 had continued until February 1998, and the opportunity to retrieve the situation to some extent by revoking rather than simply discharging the certificate had been inexplicably lost by the Board. The effect had been to inhibit to some extent Mrs A’s pursuit of her costs in the proceedings. The Board agreed to offer Mrs A an ex gratia payment of £2,000 towards those costs.
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Case No: C.902/00
Discharge of a legal aid certificate on the eve of trial
Mr A complained that faulty understanding and handling of his case on the part of the London area office of the Legal Aid Board had led to a series of unsound discharges of his legal aid certificate, with the area office discharging the certificate for a third and final time only days before the trial and in circumstances which effectively denied him an opportunity to appeal against that decision. The Ombudsman found that the case for which Mr A had sought legal aid had been a very expensive one, in which the solicitors’ estimates of the prospects of success and amount recoverable by Mr A became very much lower as the trial approached, and the estimate of costs increased. The Board had been obliged to take a robust approach to the funding of the case from taxpayers’ money. Against that background, they had taken decisions which, while not procedurally flawless, were nevertheless justifiable in the circumstances. The Ombudsman criticised the Board for poor recording and implementation of a decision by their area committee to reinstate the certificate, and for failing to arrange a further area committee hearing as soon as they could have done after the certificate had again been discharged; but did not find that those shortcomings had decisively affected the outcome of the case. The Chief Executive of the Legal Aid Board gave assurances of improved procedure and performance in the handling of appeals to area committees.
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Case No: C.1212/00
Errors in handling representations about an award of legal aid to a third party
Mr X complained that the Legal Aid Board had granted his opponents legal aid to pursue an action against him while they were financially ineligible; mishandled his representations about that granting of legal aid; and therefore caused him to incur unnecessary legal costs. The initial decision on eligibility for legal aid in 1995 by the Legal Aid Assessment Office was deficient, but later the office received sufficient information to justify it. There was confusion about the status of the certificates in 1996 and 1997 which the Legal Aid Board was slow to resolve, and in 1998 they failed to pursue a reassessment of financial eligibility. However, those errors did not mean that the Legal Aid Board had acted maladministratively in granting and continuing legal aid to Mr X’s opponents. Their legal aid certificate was discharged in 1999 as a result of fresh information not resulting from Mr X’s representations. The Legal Aid Board could not be held responsible for Mr X’s legal costs while his opponents were in receipt of legal aid. The Legal Aid Board apologised for their shortcomings and offered Mr X an ex gratia payment of £50 in respect of the trouble Mr X was put to.
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Case No: C.1234/00
Complaint of failure by the Legal Aid Board to investigate representations about a person’s eligibility for legal aid and to provide accurate information about the assisted persons’ legal aid status
In 1996, 1997 and 1998 Ms Y made representations to the Legal Aid Board, on behalf of her parents, that their opponents should not be eligible for legal aid on the grounds of both means and merits. The Ombudsman found that the means of the assisted persons and the merits of their case, and the representations made about these, had been properly considered by the Legal Aid Board and that there was no element of maladministration in their decision to grant or continue legal aid to them. However the Ombudsman did find that there had been some delays in answering correspondence. He also found that the use of standard letters by the Legal Aid Board meant that they failed to provide sufficient information to Ms Y about the investigation of her representations and on occasion had misled her about the status of the assisted persons’ legal aid. However no financial disadvantage could be attributed to these shortcomings and the Ombudsman considered the apologies offered by the Legal Aid Board to be a suitable outcome to a partly justified complaint.
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Case No: C.1236/00
Delay and error in handling representations about the award of legal aid to an opponent
Ms L complained that the Legal Aid Board misfiled and therefore did not consider her representations about her opponent’s eligibility for legal aid before the case they related to was concluded and the certificate discharged, thus losing the opportunity to discharge or revoke his certificate. The Legal Services Commission accepted that they had delayed forwarding Ms L’s representations to the appropriate office for nearly four months, including the crucial four weeks before the case was heard. They also accepted that some of their correspondence relied too much on standard drafts. They apologised for those errors, and offered Ms L £150 for the extra trouble and expense she had incurred as a result of pursuing her complaint, and undertook to remind staff about considering all enquiries on their merits. However, neither the Legal Services Commission nor the Ombudsman established a direct link between the delay and error in dealing with Ms L’s representations and the legal costs she incurred in the proceedings thereafter.
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Case No: C.1504/00
Delayed processing Mrs F’s emergency application to legal aid, lost papers and gave contradictory information about the progress of her application
The Ombudsman did not find any evidence of delay on the part of the Legal Aid Board in the consideration of Mrs F’s first emergency application for legal aid submitted on 30 October 1998. It was received on Monday 2 November and on 3 November the area office decided that she was not entitled to legal aid. Mrs F’s application went missing at some point between 3 November and 1 December but the Ombudsman found that while that may have contributed to the delay in submitting the second application it did not result in a financial loss. He was satisfied that Mrs F would have been aware that she was not in receipt of legal aid at that time so she should have known that any costs incurred would have to be funded privately. The Ombudsman criticised the Legal Aid Board for the delay in reaching a decision about the second emergency application, received in the area office on 15 December and finalised on 22 December but he found that they had not unnecessarily delayed considering the second application. The Legal Aid Board considered the application on 17 December and asked the solicitors for more information. The Ombudsman found, however, that on the balance of probabilities that the Legal Aid Board had the relevant information to enable them to award legal aid to Mrs F before the review carried out on 6 January 1999 and he criticised them for failing to send the special reasons for the decision of 22 December 1998 to Mrs F. For those reasons the Chief Executive agreed to make a compensation payment to Mrs F of £384 in recognition of the costs which she had incurred between 22 December 1998 and 3 February 1999 (the effective date of her legal aid certificate). The Ombudsman identified a number of short comings in the way the Legal Aid Board processed Mrs F’s legal aid application and in the way they dealt with her complaints for which the Chief Executive has apologised. The Legal Aid Board also offered to make a botheration payment of £50 to cover the additional letters, telephone calls and confusion caused.
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Case No: C.1723/00
Error and delay in handling a request for amendment to a legal aid certificate, loss or destruction of a file and failure to investigate a complaint properly
The Legal Aid Board discharged Mrs H’s legal aid certificate in July 1996. Neither the Legal Aid Board nor her solicitors notified her of the discharge. Mrs H attempted to change solicitors in November but the Legal Aid Board told her in December that her certificate had been discharged. In March 1997 the Legal Aid Board reinstated the certificate after her new solicitors queried its status. In April Mrs H applied to the Legal Aid Board for an amendment to allow the change of solicitors. On 30 June, the day of Mrs H’s final court hearing, the Legal Aid Board notified the new solicitors of their agreement to the amendment; Mrs H appeared in court that day without legal representation and lost her case. The Ombudsman criticised the Commission for the Legal Aid Board’s failure to explain the reasons for the discharge, for their contribution to the delay in dealing with the application for amendment, for their failure to monitor the progress of the application after it was brought to their attention that the matter was urgent, for the loss or destruction of the papers and for their poor handling of the complaint over a lengthy period. Following the Ombudsman’s intervention the Legal Services Commission recommended offering Mrs H £5,000 in recognition of their partial responsibility for the fact that she was unrepresented at her final court hearing and for her time, effort and money spent on administrative costs and for the considerable stress she experienced progressing her complaint over a lengthy period. The Chief Executive also offered his formal apologies. Additionally, the Legal Services Commission proposed changes to administrative procedures.
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Case No: C.1755/00
Mishandling representations about a person’s eligibility for legal aid
In April 1997 Mrs A made representations about her opponents’ eligibility for legal aid. There was no evidence that the Legal Aid Board investigated those representations. In December 1998 the Legal Aid Board discharged the opponents’ legal aid certificates, apparently on the basis of counsel’s advice. They did not inform Mrs A of that discharge. The Legal Aid Board then reinstated the certificates when they believed the opponents’ solicitors were working towards a settlement; and they instructed that the matter should be reviewed on a later date. That review did not take place and the certificates remained in force until the matter was settled by consent. The Ombudsman did not consider that the matter would have been settled sooner had it not been for maladministration by the Legal Aid Board. He also did not find that their actions had caused Mrs A to incur additional legal costs. He found, however, that the Legal Aid Board’s persistent mishandling of Mrs A’s case had caused her additional and unnecessary time and effort. He criticised them for that. The Chief Executive apologised for their failings and agreed to make Mrs A an ex gratia payment of £250 towards the additional and unnecessary costs which she had incurred.
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