Disabled people & legal aid cuts-new report

[jman]

The Press Association are covering the report from Scope released today on disabled people and the legal aid cuts. This is also covered on the Justice for All site. Links below

"Legal aid cuts 'will hurt disabled'
(UKPA) – 10 hours ago
Cutting legal aid could undermine the Government's own welfare reforms, a charity has said as it claimed the changes would leave thousands of disabled people receiving the wrong benefits or without any support at all.

The disability charity Scope said the plans to slash legal aid to disabled people appealing decisions against their benefits claims could ultimately drive people away from work.

The charity has published a report in which it followed five people as they navigated their way through the benefits appeal system without a solicitor paid for by legal aid. It found they were often unable to challenge incorrect decisions and make their way through the bureaucratic system.

The report - Legal Aid in welfare: the tool we can't afford to lose - comes ahead of the Government's Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill reaching committee stage in the House of Lords. It will be launched at a cross-party forum in the Lords at an event attended by Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Newton.

Scope says some 78,000 people, who make up 58% of those who receive legal aid for benefits cases, will be denied specialist legal advice.

Some 1.5 million people on incapacity benefit are currently being reassessed in a bid to create a more accurate system.

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope said: "Legal advice is vital for disabled people if they fall foul of poor decision-making, red tape or administrative error, and this makes it crucial to the success of the Government's welfare reforms.

"The Government urgently needs to think again, and understand that cutting legal aid in this area will make it harder for disabled people to get the right support and ultimately could drive more people further away from work."..............."

Rest at link below :

www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gffY0TCdb1Da-7OLB2uKF7cfFQQg?docId=N0618901321188821136A

Justice for All link to report

www.justice-for-all.org.uk/News/Scope-report-shows-cuts-will-undermine-welfare-reform

[jman]

LAG on the Scope report

" Monday, 14 November 2011
New report on impact of legal aid cuts on disabled people
LAG commissioned the disability charity Scope to research the impact of the proposed cuts in legal aid on benefits advice for disabled people. The report, Legal aid in welfare: the tool we can’t afford to lose, which is published today, demonstrates the serious consequences of the government’s proposals on disabled people and argues that taking benefits advice out of scope will undermine the government’s welfare reform programme.

In the report, Scope followed five typical claimants with disabilities as they negotiated red tape and bureaucracy to claim benefits, with and without legal aid. The final report, which is to be launched at an event in the House of Lords this afternoon, makes the following key points:

•Various reports in recent years show that the government has to make a quantum leap in order to improve the quality of decision-making in benefits cases.

•The government inaccurately portrays the benefits appeals system as easy to navigate.

•Removing benefits advice from the scope of legal aid at a time when major reforms are being implemented will have a 'knock-on impact on a tribunal system already stretched beyond breaking point'.

•The removal of legal aid 'will delay or even deny justice for many disabled people, and undermine the government’s ambitions to have a fairer benefit system that incentivises work'.

In his introduction to the report Richard Hawkes, chief executive of Scope, says that for the government’s welfare reforms to succeed and to make sure disabled people get the right support, legal aid for welfare benefits appeals is vital. The report highlights the government’s inconsistency in seemingly making the judgment that benefits are not sufficiently complex to merit legal aid while Iain Duncan Smith MP, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, is justifying his planned reforms by arguing for the need to 'cut a swath through the massive complexity of the existing benefit system'...................................."

Rest at link below :

legalactiongroupnews.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-report-on-impact-of-legal-aid-cuts.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LagNewsBlog+%28LAG+News+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader