Legal Aid: pips are squealing

Boning knife taken to NSW Legal Aid ... No money for defended Local Court trials, unless defendants face the "real possibility" of a gaol sentence ... Letter from director of the criminal law division ... Challenges in "managing the reaction from the bench" ... Massive resources for the coppers produces squeeze further down the food chain 

NSW Legal Aid plans to stop funding a large swag of defended cases in the Local Court. 

It is the latest in a series of scrunches to the legal aid system across the wide brown land. 

Brian Sandland, director of criminal law division of Legal Aid NSW, issued a missive yesterday (May 9) saying that only grants of aid will be made in defended Local Court cases "where there is a real possibility of a term of imprisonment". 

There will be no grants of aid in less serious summary offences such as shoplifting, goods in custody, assault police, resist arrest, offensive language and minor drug offences - unless there are "exceptional circumstances". 

Where an accused is imprisoned, legal aid will be available for District Court appeals - subject to the merit test. 

Since over 90 percent of criminal work in NSW is finalised in the Local Court the new policy means "significantly fewer" cases will qualify for support by Legal Aid. 

The new policy was defended on the ground that it is still more generous than other states, which restrict funding in defended hearings to cases where there is a real possibility of an actual gaol penalty. 

The NSW definition of "term of imprisonment" includes full-time incarceration, suspended sentences, intensive correction orders, home detention or community service orders. 

In 2011-1012 Legal Aid's assigned expenditure on NSW Local Court cases was $12 million - treble that of six years earlier. 

The State government has been pumping-up the coppers with increased powers and more resources, which means the pressure builds at the under-resourced end of the pipeline. 

Sandland explained that increased demand was only part of the problem, and that there had also been a cut in money from the Public Purpose Fund. 

If that it so it must have been a very recent cut, because the PPF has been the great hollow log out of which successive governments have grabbed funds for legal aid that rightfully should have come from the state budget. 

Just look at the rate of growth of PPF legal aid funding in NSW, compared with that of Victoria ... 

The cuts to defended Local Court hearings are also to be accompanied by changes to Legal Aid's grants in state civil matters, such as public interest environmental cases, victims compo and circumstances that may emerge from the Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse. 

Sandland says: 

"The policy changes are not aimed art cutting jobs in Legal Aid NSW. They are aimed at reducing significant assigned expenditure for Local Court case grants." 

All the usual steak 'n' kidney holders, such as the bar 'n' grill, the law 'n' order society the AG, the Chief Madge have been asked for "feedback". 

What will come back will be a variety of loud and pungent raspberries. 

The director of the criminal law division added: 

"There will be teething policies including the interpretation of the new policy, the timing of when to apply it, managing client expectations and managing the reaction of the bench." 

See: Brian Sandland's missive

See: Funding policy guidelines 

See: Old Mates Act