Justice Committee Transcript

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

JUSTICE COMMITTEE

FAMILY LEGAL AID REFORM

Tuesday 16 June 2009

BARONESS BUTLER-SLOSS GBE, LUCY THEIS QC, CAROLINE LITTLE,

JUDITH TIMMS and ELENA FOWLER

CAROLYN REGAN, HUGH BARRETT and SARA KOVACH-CLARK

Evidence heard in Public                                                                                     Questions 1 - 68

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Justice Committee

on Tuesday 16 June 2009

Members present

Sir Alan Beith, in the Chair

Alun Michael

Julie Morgan

Mr Andrew Turner

Mr Andrew Tyrie

Dr Alan Whitehead

________________

Witnesses: Baroness Butler-Sloss, GBE, a Member of the House of Lords, Lucy Theis, QC, Chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, Caroline Little, Co-Chair, Association of Lawyers for Children, Judith Timms, Policy Officer, NAGALRO (Professional Association for Children’s Guardians, Family Court Advisers and Independent Social Work Practitioners and Consultants), and Elena Fowler, Chief Executive Officer, National Youth Advisory Service (NYAS), gave evidence.

Q1  Chairman:  Welcome.  Do you think this debate has been conducted in the right terms, the debate about how we can provide for legal aid in the family law area on a maintainable basis?  It tends to be very much in terms of the cost and quite clearly governments have had to take account in recent years of the rising costs.  Is the debate being conducted in the right terms?

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  I have not been involved in that part of it.  Lucy Theis, who is chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, has been deeply involved in the last two years.  Of course I have retired and I have only come along because I feel impelled to come because of what I see as the very damaging effect on the access to justice and the very damaging effect to children and to parents.  I think the Legal Services Commission, with the problem of the two billion bill and the need to cut costs, has been going at it in a very broad, blunt way without looking at what might be a better way of using the relatively small amount of money, comparatively, that they want to allow family lawyers to have.  If they would listen to the suggestions that are being made for a better use of the money, one of the major points that seems to me to stand out a mile is you should not be giving the same amount of money across the board to the simple case and the difficult case.  If you do that, you do not look at the fact that a large proportion of care cases are extremely difficult.  They have very complicated medical evidence.  Social workers since Baby P have been of course putting a lot more children through the care system and this may or may not be the right thing for children, but it is a definitive moment in a child’s life and you will all know it means it will change the child’s life.  Either the child remains with parents, which may not be the right thing, or the child will be going into an alternative home and lose their parents perhaps for the rest of their lives.  Those cases need more money than the simple case.  The LSC at the moment appear to be saying that you should have a more or less similar figure, regardless of what the work is.  That will have an inevitable effect of voting with your feet by lawyers, barristers and solicitors from this work.  It is already happening under the current figures and it will accelerate.  I spoke yesterday to the president of the Family Division and your clerk may have told you that he was willing to give evidence if you wanted, but not today.  He is the chairman of the Family Justice Council and you have their report.  They are extremely concerned as are the Family Division judges and judges generally as to the impact of this.  The impact means that they will not get the experienced lawyers to do the work.  The cases will take longer, will actually cost more in judges taking longer, on legal aid, and be less well done by inexperienced lawyers and will not have the effect of the best that could be done for children.  A very telling point I took, I think from the Family Justice Council, was not only is there a real danger of inadequate access to justice which may create miscarriages of justice, but there is a double tragedy for children whose families have failed them.  They are caught up in the justice system which is failing them further.  Is this what we are doing to our children?

Q2  Julie Morgan:  You have already mentioned the complexity of the cases that need the extra effort and how important they are in children’s lives.  It is suggested that that is one of the reasons for the growth in legal aid spending.  Could you describe to us what is the type of case?  Why have cases become so much more complex?  Could you describe the sort of situation that you are dealing with?

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  Lucy, as chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, spends a great deal of her time doing these difficult cases.

Lucy Theis:  They have grown in complexity for a number of different reasons.  First of all, because there has rightly been a very critical analysis, not only by those who represent vulnerable families and children, but also by the courts, in relation to the statutory threshold that has to be passed and the evidential basis for that before there can be decisions made that may lead to a child being permanently removed from their home or not, or returned back home where they may be at risk of suffering harm.  As a result of that there is a very careful investigation by the court and by those who represent not only the children but also the parents and the other parties to the case in relation to the evidential foundation for the allegations that may be being made in relation to the risk of significant harm.  Also, the complexity in relation to in many cases medical evidence – for example, where there are non-accidental head injuries; where there are issues in relation to sexual abuse.  Baroness Butler-Sloss chaired the Cleveland Inquiry and there are still cases even 20 years on from the Cleveland Inquiry where there has been misdiagnosis in relation to allegations of sexual abuse.  There is a very recent decision by Mr Justice Holman that deplores the practice that was undertaken in relation to the diagnosis in that case.  It is a number of factors that have led to the complexity in relation to cases and also the increasing need for expertise in relation to those who conduct the cases, not only solicitors but also barristers.  If you do not have that expertise – I think it is a point your Chairman made in a recent article in The House magazine in relation to the impact on the hearings if that expert advice is not available – they have been alluded to already by Baroness Butler-Sloss.

Q3  Julie Morgan:  It is the most vulnerable children that are going to be affected by these proposals?

Lucy Theis:  Absolutely.  It is the children and families who are struggling, the bottom rung of the ladder, who are by and large the subject matter of these hearings.

Caroline Little:  The Association of Lawyers for Children’s purpose is to improve outcomes and represent children through the legal process and enhance their representation.  We reflect membership throughout the country.  Our solicitor members are involved on a daily basis, seeing children in their placements and representing children at every tier of court.  Our barrister members do the representation throughout the court.  We work together.  One of the effects of the fixed fees that were imposed on solicitors a year and a half ago in October 2007, which this Committee reported on previously, was that there was no recognition of the expertise of the Children Panel.  The net effect of that is that, although children’s solicitors are still Children Panel members, parents’ representatives are not even solicitors any more.  They are paralegals and often people who have very, very little experience of the matters dealt with in court.  Children’s solicitors are carrying these cases and often carrying the cases for parents’ representatives because the outcomes for children are affected if parents’ representation is poor.  The other aspect is of course that, with the influx of cases recently, in a certain volume of cases children’s solicitors and barristers are representing children without the benefit of a guardian for quite a large part of the case.

Q4  Chairman:  I am getting a little confused.  You are almost giving the impression that all children’s cases are inherently complex, in which case it is not possible to advance the argument that there is an increasing complexity which is added to demand.  Can you clarify that?

Caroline Little:  They are not all inherently complex.  There are some cases where you are dealing with the 11^th child of parents with mental health or alcohol or drug problems and the outcome is almost inevitable when proceedings are brought.  Those cases are dealt with very efficiently and work through the court system very, very well.  Complexities can arise when other members of the family wish to come in and care for those children.  There is always something in the case that makes it unusual.

Q5  Julie Morgan:  If these cases are not dealt with fully and properly at the court hearing, has any assessment been made of the future cost to different services?

Caroline Little:  No.  It is a short term measure.  We have always said that we reflect the difficulties that society has.  We deal with the difficulties in society in relation to children.  We have always asked for government to look at the knock on impact of not doing the work properly at care proceedings level.  It is a very difficult measure.  There has been no research in relation to that, although there is considerable research in relation to the complexities that families that come before the care courts have.  There is independent research that provides a lot of information on the multidimensional difficulties that families have.

Elena Fowler:  I am from the National Youth Advocacy Service.  We represent children in private and public law proceedings and also offer advocacy and a range of support services in a socio-legal model.  In private law proceedings the complexity issues are exactly the same but very often parents are not represented at all and those costs then will fall to the children’s solicitor.

Q6  Chairman:  I have sometimes had the argument put to me that parents who have access to legal aid in those proceedings are in a relatively stronger position than those who perhaps by a marginal difference in income do not have access to legal aid.

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  That is true.  You will appreciate it is now four years ago but I had 35 years on the bench doing children’s cases for most of that time.  In a great many private law cases where the parents either are not represented or are not very well represented – 90% of children private law cases go through perfectly normally, but there are 5% to 10% of hard core cases which turn out to be quite a lot of cases over a year – the child needs to be represented, either by a CAFCASS guardian or very often by NYAS, where CAFCASS cannot cope and ask NYAS to do it.  I have had those cases lasting six or seven years.  I had them still going when I left the High Court, went to the Court of Appeal and handed over to someone else.  These parents become locked into something.  The only way that one can cope with it is to try and get the child’s position separately dealt with.  It is extremely difficult to get a guardian for a child in a private law case and get it paid for.

Q7  Chairman:  The LSC argues that CAFCASS is funded to provide this assistance.

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  They are failing at the moment.  There are 270 cases in London where they cannot get a guardian.

Judith Timms:  I am Judith Timms from the National Association of Guardians.  There are over 600 cases waiting nationally and this is the highest number that we have had in the last few years.  We have heard about the pressures on the legal practitioners but what the Legal Services Commission proposals are going to do is also remove independent social work input from their funding scope in private law cases.  That would remove a whole raft of welfare evidence which the judges need to have before them in order to determine the best interests of the child.  We have in this country to our credit a wonderful system of tandem representation of the child, separate representation by both a children’s solicitor and a children’s guardian.  What these proposals do is a double whammy because they attack both wheels of this tandem.  The tandem model is a very sophisticated policy assurance mechanism for children.  That is why it was set up and that is why we in the Association of Guardians are concerned about children, because guardians are the people who see the very heavy end cases.  We are talking about in excess of 60,000 children a year.  Guardians have an enormous amount of accumulated, front line experience.  We are dismayed at the prospect that the independent social work input is going to be restricted under the proposals because that will certainly limit children’s access to justice.

Q8  Dr Whitehead:  During the current, recent consultation a number of concerns appear to have centred around the reliability of the LSC’s data and indeed the extent to which you could say it has understood the legal services market.  What progress do you think has been made in terms of elucidating that understanding during the consultation process?

Lucy Theis:  Can I deal with both aspects of that?  Firstly is the data and secondly is the question about understanding the market for family advocacy.  In relation to the data, one of the reasons why the consultation period was extended from 18 March to 3 April was because of the concerns in relation to data.  Six months after the consultation was published on 17 December, here we are now on 16 June.  There are still serious data issues.  The FLBA, the Bar Council and other organisations have engaged very constructively in relation to trying to resolve the data issues.  We have had weekly meetings with the various statisticians, the statisticians from the LSC, from the Ministry of Justice, from the Bar Council and Professor Martin Shortly.  Paul Fenn has been brought in from the University of Nottingham and also there has been statistician representation from the Law Society.  The most recent meeting was this morning.  It finished at five to one.  I have spoken to Martin Shortly, who was present at that meeting today, and the fact is that they are still unable to agree the basic data that underlies the proposals that are being made.  If I can just tell you what he told me, firstly, that there is broad agreement that the LSC’s existing model is inadequate because it is based on assumptions about which there is very little idea as to validity regarding in particular the cost of solicitor advocacy.  There is broad agreement between the statisticians on the structure of the model upon which to evaluate alternative proposals but, he says, the model is only as good as the data upon which it is built.  Essentially, there is still a considerable amount of work to be done in relation to agreeing the data upon which to build the structure on top.  From the meeting this morning, both Paul Fenn and Martin Shortly are going away to look again at the data and they are going to report back next Friday.  They have a further statisticians’ meeting on Tuesday 30 June to discuss those issues further.  The short answer to your question is that there are still very serious data issues in relation to the foundation of these proposals and here we are, six months later, and they have not been resolved.  In relation to the barrister data regarding the family graduated fee scheme, many of the items that have been identified by Professor Martin Shortly have been of great assistance to the LSC in the sense that we have helped them improve their ability to be able to collect the data and the systems by which they have been collecting the data.  There was for example a difficulty discovered this morning that may mean there has been at least three million, 3% of the amount spent on barristers’ fees, double counted in the data that we thought was clean on the basis that, as we understand it, when a claim is made, if it is sent back to the barrister for further inquiries, that is registered in their data as having been a payment made.  When it comes back and is paid on the correct form, it is paid again.  Even at the most fundamental level – the family graduated fee scheme was meant to be a gold standard, simple data system that was set up – there are still difficulties in relation to that.  In relation to the solicitor advocacy, they have absolutely no idea as to what the current cost of solicitor advocacy is.  The implications for this are that if they proceed on the basis of the flawed data in fact the impact in relation to the budget is completely unknown, because they may be right or they may not be.

Q9  Chairman:  Lord Bach wrote to me before he knew about the example you have just quoted and said, “I understand that none of the issues identified has been of sufficient statistical significance to materially impact on the proposals.” 

Lucy Theis:  I am afraid, with all due respect, I would fundamentally disagree with that.  The most recent letter is set out in paragraph 11 of our briefing document.  The complaint has always been that the family graduated fee scheme has been rising in cost.  If you look at the last three years, the cost has remained pretty consistent so it has achieved what it set out to do, namely to provide cost control but to ensure that the expertise due to the graduation within the fee structure was retained to be able to conduct the work.  Can I deal briefly with the second point in relation to the advocacy market?  As you know, nine days before the close of the consultation the LSC instructed Ernst and Young to be able to provide a report in relation to family advocacy.  We regard that late instruction as extraordinary because we thought perhaps it may have been better to have got that evidence first before you actually made the proposals that they have.  We understand from the documents that we have seen that that report is going to cost somewhere between £70,000 and £100,000, so it is an expensive report that is being obtained.  It is looking at fundamentals in relation to the family advocacy market, including the effect in relation to self-employed advocates continuing to be able to do the work.  That report, first having been told it was going to be available in August, we are now told will be available at the end of June, but there is going to be no opportunity given to any of the stakeholders to be able to respond to that evidence.  We would say it is a critical piece of evidence in relation to the impact of what they are proposing, particularly when the impact falls on the most vulnerable in society.  In terms of the process, we say in effect that it makes a mockery of the consultation process to produce such an important piece of evidence without the courtesy of even a meeting after the report has been produced.  They have rather grudgingly said that they are going to share it with us but in terms of providing an impact and the effect in relation to what is proposed it is extremely important.  We say the process is manifestly unfair and fails to comply with what they said in their own consultation paper about inviting stakeholders to provide evidence to validate or challenge evidence that they had.

Q10  Dr Whitehead:  I think I know the answer to this in terms of what you have said about the Ernst and Young research into the market.  There has been no liaison between the profession and the LSC as far as the Ernst and Young report is concerned?

Lucy Theis:  We have been continuing to have meetings at practitioner and statistician level.  In relation to the LSC, they have been to see Dr Debora Price who you may remember produced the King’s College Survey that the FLBA produced at the beginning of this year as a result of the survey in October.  That obviously only relates to barristers.  It was not commissioned to be able to deal with the advocacy market.  We have been as helpful as we can in relation to providing whatever data we have from that.  In relation to data concerning solicitor advocacy, the short answer is that there is no data, despite the fact that you in your own report in 2007 said that it was important that that data should be collected. Frontier Economics, who were then the Department of Constitutional Affairs’ own expert evidence and reported in 2003, said that this data should be collected.  We were aware after the instruction of Ernst and Young that a survey was put out to solicitors on the LSC website.  We were told last week that the response to that survey was eight.  It has absolutely no statistical basis at all.  That is the bottom line.

Q11  Chairman:  Not eight solicitor advocates; just eight responses?

Lucy Theis:  Eight responses.  I am unclear whether it is firms or individuals, but I do not think it would make any difference, frankly.  There were over 1,600 responses to the King’s College but it was commissioned for an entirely different purpose.   Debora Price has had two meetings I think with Ernst and Young to provide what assistance she can.

Q12  Dr Whitehead:  Lord Bach has said to us that the Ernst and Young research is in his consideration not relevant to the fundamental structure of the LSC’s proposals and that the sharing of the report with the profession was a courtesy.  You do not apparently agree with that.

Caroline Little:  We do wonder why the research has been undertaken if it has no value in the context of the advocacy consultation that is taking place.  What is apparent from the solicitors’ point of view is, when the initial Carter consultation came out and fixed fees were being imposed, the LSC and government have no idea of the extent and breadth of solicitor advocacy at every level of court.  They have no idea and no information at all.  Indeed, from a response that has been sent to you yesterday or today to a review of the fixed fee regime, you will see that solicitors have not been rewarded for preparation for advocacy since October 2007 and that is a serious deficit for solicitor advocates.  It discourages solicitor advocacy.

Q13  Dr Whitehead:  Could I turn briefly to the question of overall spending?  The Ministry of Justice has now released revised figures for spending on the family graduated fee scheme which show spending falling in 2007 and 2008 from the previous year and the total spend at under £90 million rather than the £100 million which was referred to in the original consultation.  That seems to me quite a difference.  Has that in your view made any difference to the LSC’s approach as far as consultation and post-consultation is concerned?

Lucy Theis:  The short answer is no.  We have tried to persuade them that the family graduated fee scheme is a scheme that works. It provides cost control and it retains expertise.  We have made suggestions about recalibrating parts of it so that it can be extended to solicitor advocates.  In fact, when we first suggested it in 1999, we suggested it should be an integrated advocacy scheme to cover all advocacy, whoever does it.  We have no difficulty with that as a principle.  That is something that we have said right from the beginning, but it has to be a scheme that rewards the work that is actually undertaken but does not over-reward the less complex work at the expense of the more complex work.  A matter of very great concern for us is the fact that, even though this Committee has clearly expressed some very real concerns about the impact and the effect of these proposals, we were told last Friday that the LSC nevertheless are going to make their announcement on 14 August, come what may.  They have made that decision in the knowledge of the concerns being expressed not only by all the different stakeholders but also by this Committee.  If I may say so, it is treating this Committee with contempt in relation to the way that it wants to steam on with the proposals irrespective and failing to give those who should have it an opportunity to be able to respond and make a contribution to evidence that is being produced in defiance of fairness, frankly.

Q14  Chairman:  Can I turn to the LSC’s view that it is really all about swings and roundabouts?  In this, as in other aspects of the law, what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts.  Is that no longer in any way an appropriate method in the area of legal practice?

Caroline Little:  Solicitors have been working under a fixed fee regime since October 2007.  The swings and roundabouts method is one that you will not find any applause for among childcare practitioners.  As I said earlier, solicitor Children Panel members are carrying a very heavy burden at lesser pay than parents’ representation.  When the original consultation came out, we said quite properly believing in a system where parents should have quality representation as well as children that parents’ representation should be paid at a greater rate because it is more difficult.  They do not have professional clients.  Unfortunately, because there is no measure of who represents them any more, the solicitors are carrying that burden at a lesser payment.  They are falling between the fixed fee and the escape, which is double the fixed fee, quite regularly now.  In relation to advocacy, the swings and roundabouts model does not work at all because, from a solicitor’s point of view, if you want counsel to do a complex case on behalf of a family member or a child, you will not be able to get one if the fee is not correct for such a complex case.  It is as simple as that.  It is not the same as solicitors conducting the work to prepare the case.  It is trying to get an advocate to conduct it.

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  I am sure this Committee knows that the Family Bar divides up into those who do financial cases with private clients who make a good living and those who do children cases who make very often a relatively small living.  They earn just about enough to pay chambers and all the rest of it and have an income, but it is not a part of the legal profession, either Bar or solicitors, who are in it for making the money.  It is also very stressful, very emotional, very exhausting for judges and for lawyers.  The return on it at this moment is not particularly good, to the extent that I nowadays when students come to me and say, “You are a family judge.  Should I go into family law?” advise them not to.  They will not get a good enough income and they will have a great deal of aggro in doing it.  If the new scheme comes in, of course one should not be advising them to do it.

Lucy Theis:  In relation to the position regarding fixed fees, the fact is that the Bar tends to do the more complex cases.  If you have a system of fixed fees with no graduation, the flight from the bar from doing this sort of work will happen.  It will become a stampede to the door.  Debora Price in her report then, when we were facing cuts of 13%, concluded as a result of the survey that over 80% of those doing the work were either going to reduce the amount they do or stop doing it.  I can give a living example of that in relation to a case I was involved in last week, which was a private paying money case.  My opponent was a junior barrister of 20 years’ standing, very experienced, who up until last year was doing 100% of publicly funded childcare work.  He has now reduced that to 40% and he is going to reduce it even further.  Many colleagues of his of the same experience and expertise are doing the same.  It is already happening. In relation to the impact of these proposals and the flight from this work, that is what will happen.

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  I know solicitors where the family partner is under considerable criticism from the other partners for being carried by the other partners. Certainly two or three firms I know, particularly down in the West Country, have had to give up because the other partners will not allow them to continue to do family work.

Q15  Chairman:  Do you think the LSC is assuming that a legal services market has developed, rather as envisaged under the Legal Services Act, when it has not actually done so?

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  Yes.  I think that is right.

Lucy Theis:  That is precisely the point.  There is an aspiration in relation to what they want the market to be but that is not what is happening.  The fact is that solicitors and the Bar have shared rights of advocacy for many, many years.  They operate in the way that they do because that is the division in relation to expertise and roles.  We suspect, as we have set out in our report, that there are in fact two distinct markets.  We will wait with interest to see what Ernst and Young say in relation to their report.  Our difficulty is that at the moment on the LSC’s stated timetable neither this Committee nor the stakeholders will have an opportunity to be able to respond to that.  Effectively, one of the most critical pieces of evidence is going to be denied in relation to the decision that has been made. 

Q16  Chairman:  You mentioned the survey with eight responses.  Does nobody know how many solicitor advocates there are in family law?

Caroline Little:  We know that there were 2,500 Children Panel members who have now reduced to below 1,800 and that we are getting older and older.  There are very few young ones coming through.  It is Children Panel solicitors who tend to be the expert advocates on behalf of children to provide consistency of representation, through seeing them in their homes and appearing at every court level for them.  There is a reducing body of children’s solicitor advocates.

Q17  Chairman:  In-house solicitor advocates?

Caroline Little:  Those are in-house.  They are solicitors who conduct the cases from beginning to end.  We are independent.  The reduction in expertise has been marked for the last three years in specialist solicitor representation.

Elena Fowler:  If I can broaden this into what is happening in relation to independent social work, under these proposals, exactly the same drift will happen because by removing independent social work as recommended in the proposals and putting it under CAFCASS we will lose the expertise of the most experienced child care practitioners.  We will actually see a loss in terms of legal representation and in terms of the social work input which will be very serious in relation to outcomes for the most vulnerable children that we work with.

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  The other problem which is very serious is that, through no fault of CAFCASS, they cannot cope at the moment.  Therefore, to suggest that they should be taking anything more on when they really have grave problems of managing the work that they have at the moment is pie in the sky.  It just is not going to happen.

Judith Timms:  It would have a disastrous impact on children because there are so many children waiting for guardians already.  It would mean extra cases for CAFCASS to absorb.  I do not think anybody believes, as Baroness Butler-Sloss has said, that CAFCASS has the capacity to do that. 

Q18  Chairman:  The LSC believes that they are funded to do it.  How have they got into this degree of error?

Judith Timms:  Exactly.  This is part of a crude funding war, if you like, between the DCSF and the LSC and the MoJ.  What the LSC are trying to do is to slough off the responsibility for funding all independent social work and push that onto CAFCASS and say, “Right, that is your responsibility.  You do the social work input.  We will do the legal input.”  It is a very crude split.  That is why NYAS’s work has been hit so hard because NYAS is the only holistic service for children that provides both those services, the independent social work and the legal input, in a manner we thought the government wanted, a joined up policy in relation to children.  I think there is a misunderstanding between DCSF and the LSC about how they are interpreting the over-arching agenda in relation to safeguarding children as set out in Every Child Matters.  I was concerned in speaking to the LSC that they do not appear to be accepting the wider government responsibility for the over-arching strategy in relation to child protection.  After all, all of these matters which we are concerned with and all the lawyers, solicitors and social workers in court are there because we are trying to salvage the best interests for some very vulnerable children.  There does need to be that clarification about how the LSC are interpreting their responsibility in the wider safeguarding agenda, because there is no evidence of it in the proposals.

Elena Fowler:  To suggest that the welfare principle is not at the heart of legislation for children makes a mockery of children’s access to justice.

Caroline Little:  The ALC sat on the care proceedings reform stakeholder and ministerial groups and the one thing that is very clear from that is that the desire for excellence seems to stop at the doors of the court.  The responsibility moves from one department to another.  I would invite you to say that that is an incorrect assumption in relation to children.  There should be excellence through the court process for children at every level.

Q19  Julie Morgan:  The ALC has expressed concerns about the impact of these proposals on the public law outline.  Could you explain to us what those concerns are?

Caroline Little:  Yes.  The public law outline relies on expertise of the lawyers doing the work.  The idea is that you have fewer hearings but they are very carefully focused on the interests of the children and progressing the case speedily and well.  That means that the people attending court on behalf of children and parties need to know how to do the work.  They have to be experts.  They have to do the work behind the scenes before going to court.  They have to be very focused on the agenda for the child, the timetable for the child, what is required, what expertise the court needs.  You cannot do that without expert representation.  It is as simple as that.

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  It is a judicially led process.  My successor, the president of the Family Division, and the judges of the High Court Family Division have put together this particular outline, which is a case management arrangement, so that they can get the best, the most efficient, and have fewer court hearings but make the court hearings work with less expense in one sense.  The judges gave a response to this LSC consultation paper, as indeed the Family Justice Council has, chaired by the president, with their very great concerns about the impact of these LSC proposals on the judicial process.  It is under great pressure anyway, but it will not be working properly under the new schemes.  This is why the judges are so concerned.

Q20  Mr Tyrie:  This is all about money really, is it not, and the fact that there is not any?  If you were given the same amount of money, do you think you could do this job much better with a completely different structure and, if so, how would you go about it?

Lucy Theis:  We do not ask for more money.  I made that perfectly clear, I hope, in our document that we submitted.  The short answer to your question is yes, we think we can and we think it should be a graduated fee scheme in relation to advocacy along the lines of the existing scheme that is currently paid to the Bar, with some recalibration. It is a system that has been demonstrated to work.  The data is there hopefully nearly clean.  With the appalling history in relation to data issues and the Legal Services Commission, it would be extremely dangerous to embark on yet another scheme that may have difficulties in relation to not only the data being kept but also the budget.

Q21  Mr Tyrie:  Could I ask you to speculate on why, if that seems so manifestly clear to almost everyone close to this subject, there is so much persistence with this reform?

Caroline Little:  I think it is because historically there has been so little understanding of the cost drivers in care proceedings.  There is a great deal more information about that, but it was all put at the doors of the lawyers.  That is not the case.  There is a lot of information that this Committee has about what has driven the cost in care proceedings, the complexity, the court delays and having a well qualified system of representation oils the justice system much better and ensures that things are dealt with in a timely way.

Elena Fowler:  In private law proceedings, I think it is perceived as a quick fix to shift the cost of social work intervention onto another department when what we need is a joined up approach between those departments to value a holistic approach that we know through our work achieves much better, much quicker outcomes, making a substantial saving to the public purse in the long run both in terms of the legal proceedings, which we do close down considerably more quickly, but also in terms of the long term damage to the child.  If these significant issues are not addressed at the time of family breakdown, you end up with children going into mental health problems, secure accommodation, antisocial behaviour, etc.

Baroness Butler-Sloss:  It impressed me that the Bar are not asking for more money.  What they are asking is for a redistribution of the money in a more effective way to pay people who do the more complex cases and to pay less to people who do the simpler cases.  That seems a practical way of approaching it.

Q22  Mr Tyrie:  I do not want to put words in your mouth but I invite you to sum up by saying there is no joined up government.

Caroline Little:  Absolutely.

Q23  Mr Tyrie:  There seems to be agreement on that.  Waste of public money going on, which would be better spent in another way?

Caroline Little:  Yes.

Q24  Mr Tyrie:  And children put at risk by failure to address these mistakes?

Caroline Little:  Absolutely, yes. 

Q25  Mr Tyrie:  That is quite a serious condemnation of public policy.

Caroline Little:  I would remind you that solicitors have not had any rates increase for 15 years.

Chairman:  Thank you all very much.

Witnesses: Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive, Hugh Barrett, Executive Director (Commissioning), and Sara Kovach-Clark, Head of Civil Policy Development (Family), Legal Services Commission, gave evidence.

Q26  Chairman:  Welcome.  You were all here during the earlier session so you have heard the evidence and we will probe you in more detail about it but what is your initial reaction to the strength of feeling and the unanimous view that there must be a better way of doing this?

Carolyn Regan: We agree with some of what was being said in terms of trying to reach a solution within the resources we have available.  That is why we are working with the FLBA and others to try and address some of the key issues.  It was quite difficult to hear but one of the key issues was about complexity of cases and that is a piece of work which is going on.  The second point is of course the issue of fairness and equality of pay, recognising that 63% of advocacy in these family cases is undertaken by solicitors.  That is another issue we are trying to address. 

Q27  Dr Whitehead:  You have heard the concerns that have been expressed about the data and the basis on which the data that is available is being used and indeed the emergence of data during and after the period of consultation.  Are you confident that the data on which you are relying is sufficiently robust and accurate to give you the underpinning for your proposals that one might think it should?

Carolyn Regan: The feedback I had from the meeting this morning was that this was described as the best source of data available in terms of its cleanness, if I can put it like that, at the state it is now.  Obviously, as has been mentioned before, we are using the advice and oversight of Professor Paul Fenn as well as the existing statisticians to continue those discussions which have been numerous.  As at this morning, I was told this was the best source of data available.

Sara Kovach-Clark:  We consulted on the data as well as the structure.  We shared data as part of our consultation process.  During that the Bar has been extremely helpful in raising issues and helping us to resolve those issues.  As issues have come up we have resolved them.  There is one remaining issue that we have still yet to resolve but I am confident that we can resolve that issue certainly by the end of next week.  So far nothing has been raised that has shown a material difference to the proposals that we consulted on.  I think we will have an excellent set of data by the end of this consultation period.

Q28  Dr Whitehead:  Forgive me but is it not more normal practice to have data which informs the beginning of a consultation rather than data that emerges during a consultation and is refined after the end of it?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  Data has not emerged in that sense.  Issues with the data have emerged which we have resolved and shown that the data that we consulted on and the data that we formed our consultation proposals on was fit for purpose, is still fit for purpose and I am confident will continue to be fit for purpose.

Q29  Dr Whitehead:  The Ernst and Young research which commenced after the end of the consultation and has been suggested as not being strictly speaking relevant to the consultation appears to be central to it, does it not?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  I would not say it was central to the consultation.  It is an additional piece of information, a piece of economic analysis that will help inform us as to the final impact of our final proposals.  We have always been clear that we would show stakeholders a copy of the report and allow them some time to comment on it.  I am very grateful to the Bar for the work that Dr Price has done with Ernst and Young.  That has been very helpful and we ourselves have I think, through Ernst and Young, been helpful to the Bar who have instructed their own economic consultants to look at some of the issues that Ernst and Young are looking agriculture.  When we awarded the tender to Ernst and Young, we shared the terms of reference and what Ernst and Young were looking at with all of our stakeholders as soon as we were allowed to do so under the terms of procurement law so we could be as open and transparent as possible, so I think we have been fair and open there.  We will be allowing people time to comment on the proposals and the Bar have instructed Auxera, a firm of economic consultants with whom Ernst and Young have cooperated in terms of the work that they are doing.

Q30  Dr Whitehead:  Why was it commissioned when it was commissioned then?  Should it not have been commissioned somewhat earlier?  What is the cost of the commissioning in any event?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  I understand that the cost of commissioning is about 63,000, not 100,000.  We always intended to instruct economic consultants once the proposal had gone out.  It was an issue of resources for us as the LSC and it was always an additional piece of information.  We never saw it as fundamental to what we were consulting on.

Carolyn Regan:  It is additional, economic analysis.  It is not fundamental to the shape of the proposals we consulted on.

Q31  Chairman:  Why is it worth spending £63,000 on it?

Carolyn Regan:  Because it is ongoing, additional, economic analysis which we would do anyway.  That is part of what we continue to commission as we look at the impact of the ongoing changes.

Hugh Barrett:  One of the key things we are going to get out of the economic research is an assessment of the risk of a drop of supply.  We are also going to look at the possible increase in supply because one of the implications of our proposals is that the rates we are paying solicitor advocates will rise as a result of this. It is important to recognise that currently 63% of advocacy in family courts is done by solicitor advocates, not by self-employed barristers.

Q32  Dr Whitehead:  If it is described as the cherry on the cake but there was not apparently a cake in the first place as far as data was concerned, is that not a rather odd way to go around organising data, whether it is central or peripheral, for a consultation process?

Carolyn Regan:  There was a set of proposals which is what we consulted on.  They were about addressing this issue of fairness and the fact that we are paying solicitor advocates and independent advocates different rates at the moment.  As Mr Barrett said, 63% of that work is done by solicitors.  We have also looked at cleaning up the data on an ongoing basis in discussion with the family Bar and others.

Q33  Dr Whitehead:  You have specifically written to the family Bar stating a little while ago that the in-house employment of advocates by solicitors is a statement made on the basis of anecdotal evidence.  You do not keep a written record of anecdotal conversations that you have had, but these are things that come up time and again.  Do you know the number of in-house advocates or are the anecdotes the basis on which some of the planning has been done?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  The consultation has not just been done on the basis of anecdotes.  We have had several pieces of evidence that have come through in responses to other consultations as to why solicitors instruct counsel to do advocacy. That is the anecdotal evidence that I think you are referring to in that letter.  I do not have a copy in front of me.  While it may not be hard facts and data, solicitors have said to us on numerous occasions, both in response to formal consultations and in public consultation events face to face, that there is a variety of reasons why they instruct counsel and they are not all about complexity.  Often, it is about convenience as well.

Q34  Chairman:  You told us that the employment of in-house advocates by solicitors is a statement made on the basis of anecdotal evidence.  You have not carried out any specific research into this area.  What do we know and how do we know it about the number of in-house advocates employed?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  All we can know is what solicitors choose to tell us.  We have tried to obtain that information from solicitors.  They have not told us that.  We do not have specific figures on in-house advocates because you do not have to necessarily be a trained solicitor advocate with higher rights of audience to be able to do advocacy.  Lots of solicitors do it as an ordinary part of their work.

Q35  Dr Whitehead:  Could I turn to the statement that you made about swings and roundabouts in terms of the fee payments and so on for practitioners?  Is that not counter-intuitive in a system where practitioners graduate from simple to complex cases as their career progresses?  Certainly, if we are saying that that looks counter-intuitive does that not imply that advocates can actually be paid less as they become more senior?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  In the proposals that we are looking at in conjunction with our stakeholders, the Law Society, the Bar and other solicitor representative bodies we are looking at being able to reflect complexity more effectively in the final proposals.  So those barristers who just do complex work should find themselves more appropriately remunerated, I would suggest.

Q36  Dr Whitehead:  If you do want to encourage solicitor advocates – and state they should be paid the same as barristers – why then was that group penalised in the 2007 reforms by the failure to separate out payments for preparations for hearings, as opposed to the more general preparation that all solicitors do?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  The 2007 fee scheme was based on the historical cost of cases and so preparation would have been recorded as part of the solicitors’ profit costs and so those preparation costs were included in the 2007 scheme.  However, one of the things that we have been looking at with our solicitor stakeholders is a way of appropriately remunerating those solicitors who do their own advocacy and do preparation for that advocacy, and I am confident that the new scheme will reflect that appropriately.

Q37  Dr Whitehead:  When you say you have been looking at it, is that material that is in the consultation or post consultation or is it in train?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  We had a separate consultation on the phase one fee scheme review.  We did a report that looked at the operation of the phase one fee scheme where these first 2007 schemes were looked at again.  In that group we suggested that as the historical costs of preparation of advocacy were included in the existing scheme one way of appropriately remunerating those who do their own advocacy was to take a proportion out of the representation budget and put it into the advocacy budget and that is what we are looking at doing at the moment.

Q38  Mr Tyrie:  Have you made any estimate of the long-term effect of these changes on other areas of public spending?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  With respect to independent social work, yes, we have.  We have been talking to the Department for Children, Schools and Families and with CAFCASS as well and we are very clear about it would not be appropriate for us to make any changes where we have not considered the effect on them as well, and we will continue to talk with them on that.

Q39  Mr Tyrie:  Is that in the public domain?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  Not at the moment because we are working together to provide joint advice to our ministers and so it is important that we get that advice to ministers first and that they have an opportunity to consider it.

Q40  Mr Tyrie:  Do you not think it might be a good idea to get it in the public domain as soon as possible?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  I think we would like to do that very much but it is obviously important that ministers get our advice first.

Q41  Mr Tyrie:  That takes a day or two.  When do you think you can publish this?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  The final response to our consultation will be published on 14 August.

Q42  Mr Tyrie:  I do find it astonishing that you are relying on a bit of anecdotal evidence from some solicitors in order to come to these conclusions on policy and that, as you put it, you are relying on what solicitors choose to tell you.  Why do you not commission a small piece of survey evidence based on a representative sample?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  That is what we attempted to do with the Ernst and Young survey and we asked solicitors to respond to that survey; but, as you have heard, they chose not to do that.

Q43  Mr Tyrie:  Then you have to send people round and ask if they will sit down with a surveyor.

Sara Kovach-Clark:  As I have said before, just because evidence is anecdotal it does not mean that we do not hear it all the time from solicitors.  We talk to them a lot; they have responded in writing to various consultations saying the same things and, as I said earlier, they say the same things in meetings; so I think we are reasonably confident that solicitors do their own advocacy for different reasons.  But the fundamental point is that when they do their own advocacy they should be paid the same amount as barristers for the same work.

Q44  Mr Tyrie:  Did I hear you earlier say, Mr Barrett, that you had done an assessment of the risk of a drop in supply?

Hugh Barrett:  No, I said that that was part of the work that Ernst and Young were doing for us.

Q45  Chairman:  That will be produced when?

Hugh Barrett:  At the end of this month.

Carolyn Regan:  The end of June.

Q46  Mr Tyrie:  Do you think that it would pose fundamental problems if there were a sharp drop in supply?

Hugh Barrett:  If there were a significant drop in supply yes, it would case a significant problem.

Q47  Mr Tyrie:  In which case why is this research described as not fundamental to the structure of the fee scheme?

Hugh Barrett:  It is fundamental to the decision whether we proceed with the fee scheme.

Q48  Chairman:  That is a pretty significant point.

Hugh Barrett:  Yes.

Q49  Mr Tyrie:  I have to say that as I listen to this I can sense all confidence in every aspect of everyone who is dealing with this proposal draining away and I really do wonder whether it might not be a better idea if you delay implementation of all this until you have collected the data properly, understood it a little better and won the confidence of some of the people who are involved in actually having to implement these proposals.  Would you be prepared to discuss that with your political masters?

Carolyn Regan:  We know that we have an issue with increasing costs per case not matched by the increase in volumes.  We also know that we have an issue with equality of payments to different groups of people doing similar work; and we also know that we have to work within a fixed budget.  Obviously some of the issues that you have mentioned are in discussion and we are trying to come up with a scheme which picks up some of the previous points around complexity and preparation and I am sure that you will have seen the letter sent today from the Law Society, which actually supports an approach to equalise, for example, advocacy rates paid.  I know it is very late but we are trying to balance those different interests and of course the points that have come out today are in our submissions to the Ministry of Justice on an ongoing basis.

Q50  Mr Tyrie:  The short answer to me would have been no, we are not considering a pause in the implementation.

Carolyn Regan:  We are taking all of this into the mix and trying to come up with something which resolves these outstanding issues.  The two current one are not that the principle of paying the same rates for equal pay are in disagreement; the disagreement is how you do that within a fixed budget, recognising some of the things that we do know as factual about the increase in cost per cases and not matched by the increase in volumes.  We also know that graduated fees are not a good way of controlling the budget and actually have seen an increase of 30% in family costs over the last five years.  So clearly we have issues about complexity and preparation and how do we balance those different interests and not impact on either the supply of people doing this work or the work of the courts, of which we are very mindful.

Q51  Mr Tyrie:  So the real driver is long-term public expenditure threats?

Carolyn Regan:  I do not think it is only that.  It is, as I have said, trying to recognise that we have an inherently unfair system at the moment and trying to reward the people doing the work and indeed encourage the future generation.  But clearly public expenditure is one of my concerns within a fixed budget.

Chairman:  I am tempted to wonder if we locked you in a room with the previous witnesses and went away and came back a day or so later you might have actually come up with a satisfactory answer.

Q52  Mr Tyrie:  The alternative might be that there are rather few of you left than there are now!

Carolyn Regan:  We are in constant discussion and we have mentioned a meeting this morning both about the data and trying to address some of these issues, and also having a scheme which has some long-term future; so I do not think we need to be locked in a room to continue those discussions.  I believe – and Sara is much closer to it – that we are making some progress and there is some agreement, but clearly we need to come up with something which is advice.  As was said, it is not us publishing our response, it is a ministerial response and the scheduled date is 14 August.

Q53  Chairman:  If you go to the ministers and say, “We think we have cracked the problem between us within the budgetary constraint you have set” they are not going to turn round and say, “No, go away again,” are they?

Carolyn Regan:  No, no, absolutely not; I would hope not.

Q54  Julie Morgan:  You do not have to stick to August 14 do you, surely?

Carolyn Regan:  We do not have to but we are re-letting all the civil contracts next year, April 2010, so obviously we have a window to link it in with that.

Q55  Julie Morgan:  It just seems very important, would you agree, that if you could settle it between you that you did put off the date.

Carolyn Regan:  Yes.

Hugh Barrett:  But we have conflicting pressures on us.  We have one half of the profession wanting it implemented quickly – equalisation pay – and we have pressure from other parts of the profession saying that they would like it delayed.

Chairman:  Some of that is outside the main legal term, is it not.  We are talking about August now and I know family cases have to continue then, but it is a window of opportunity there.

Q56  Julie Morgan:  We are told that this would disproportionately affect women and black and minority ethnic people.   I know you have a Provider Diversity Reference Group and have you had discussions with them about the impacts of these proposals and what do they say?

Carolyn Regan:  We have discussed with them and we have also discussed more recently with the Bar’s Equality and Diversity Committee and we have also commissioned some focus group work additionally to get some views of people working in this field.  Do you want to talk about the discussion with the Equality and Diversity Committee?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  Yes.  We had a very constructive discussion last week.  We are agreed that the only way to mitigate the impact on women, black and minority ethnic barristers is to look at introducing more measures for complexity scheme and that is what we are looking at in conjunction with our stakeholders.  We are also agreed that the reason why so many black and minority ethnic barristers and women barristers are affected more by these proposals is because of the allocation of work in the chambers – they traditionally get more of this type of work when their white male colleagues get less of it.  So that is a factor that the Legal Services Commission has no control over but we are working with the Equality and Diversity Committee to obtain the best possible evidence that we can to inform the impact assessment of our final proposals.

Q57  Julie Morgan:  So you accept that the proposals will disproportionately affect that group?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  They will and we will do our best to mitigate those, but there are matters without our control and the allocation of work in chambers is not within the control of the Legal Services Commission.

Q58  Julie Morgan:  It just seems a matter of concern that you are going to proceed along this line if it is going to have this effect.

Sara Kovach-Clark:  We have an obligation to mitigate as far as we possibly can and that is what we are looking to do.

Q59  Alun Michael:  Can I ask you about one specific thing and that is the exclusion from scope of the guardianship services of guardianship services and independent social work.  Could you tell us what discussions you have had on those aspects and on that exclusion?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  We have had a number of discussions with CAFCASS because they and we both agree that this is work that should be more properly funded through CAFCASS rather than the Legal Services Commission.  However, we recognise that if we were to take independent social work out of scope that would have an effect on CAFCASS resources and so we are in discussions with them at the moment as to how to deal with that.

Q60  Alun Michael:  Could you tell us what comments you have received on that aspect?  I am sure that people have commented on it even though you have defined it as out of scope.

Sara Kovach-Clark:  Many respondents to the consultation agreed with us that this is work that is more properly funded through CAFCASS.  There are many others who do not and who believe that there is a conflict of interest with CAFCASS and in some cases then it is appropriate for the Legal Services Commission to pay for independent social work.  Our view is that independent social work should be paid for as a matter of expertise and not as a matter of course and often we find ourselves paying for independent social work when CAFCASS have been unable or unwilling to allocate a guardian and that cannot be right.

Q61  Alun Michael:  You heard evidence earlier that a lot of the scene is a financial battle between different bodies.  Do you want to comment on that in relation to this?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  Yes, I do.  That is an unfortunate impression because we have been in discussions all along with CAFCASS about this and I do not think we have any intention of allowing this to be an unseemly battle and we will not be making any proposals to ministers without fully understanding the impact on CAFCASS and fully advising ministers both at Ministry of Justice and DCSF to the impact on resources.

Q62  Alun Michael:  On reflection would it not have been better to put it in scope and allow that discussion to take place during the consultation?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  I do not think so, no; I think it is very important that we get the message out there that legal aid is for specialist legal advice and for expert evidence it is necessary for them to make that advice and representation relevant.

Q63  Alun Michael:  But there is a relationship between the two, is there not, at a variety of different levels.  Would you not accept that there is a concern that there could emerge from this consultation a constraint on judicial discretion in the making of appropriate orders in particular cases?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  We would not want to constrain judicial discretion; however, we have to give due regard to the financial pressures that are on this as well and so it is important that we fund what we are statutorily obliged to fund and that CAFCASS funds what they are statutorily obliged to fund.

Q64  Alun Michael:  But getting the right organisation commissioning or paying for particular parts of work is in a sense an administrative issue.  Is not the exclusion of this from scope really resulting in rather a fractured discussion about the issue?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  I do not think it is.  I am confident that the discussions we are having with CAFCASS and DCSF and our colleagues at the Ministry of Justice will provide a satisfactory results for all parties.

Q65  Chairman:  Let us be clear, we are not talking about some administrative technicality but the representation of children in cases where their entire life and future is at stake.  Surely this ought not to descend into what appears to be an argument between two organisations about who should be picking up the tab.

Sara Kovach-Clark:  There is not an argument between who should be picking up the tab.  What we are discussing at the moment is how we make sure that services to children are maintained and how we make sure that each agency properly funds what it is statutorily obliged to.

Q66  Chairman:  So your view is that it is a CAFCASS responsibility to provide for guardianship services and independent social work, but you can see that there are cases where a conflict of interest might arise and an independent social worker needs to be appointed.  In those circumstances do you think that it would be better for LSC to be paying rather than CAFCASS, given that we are talking about a potential conflict of interest?  Are you satisfied that CAFCASS would in effect be paying for both?

Sara Kovach-Clark:  I think in cases of conflict where CAFCASS could be in a position to commission independent social work themselves from outside of CAFCASS to provide advice in cases of conflict, where the Commission should be funding – and we are not proposing to take it out of scope – is independent social work where parents are challenging the social work that has been done by a local authority who are taking their child into care.  That, to me, is expert evidence and that to me is properly funded by the Legal Services Commission.

Q67  Chairman:  You will have obviously gathered from this session not only that there is considerable concern within the professions involved – people doing the work – and a wider concern; but that there is also, I think, a recognition that you do have financial problems to deal with.  Without wishing to put words into the mouth of the Committee, which has not freshly reported on the issue, we share a lot of the concerns and we would want to be sure that the timetable that you have imposed on yourselves does not preclude reaching a satisfactory solution.  Can you give us some assurance that you will not allow that to happen, bearing in mind that in your impact assessment you actually said, “Depending on the outcome of the consultation, the new fee schemes will be implemented in 2010.”  We are not even suggesting to you at the moment that a scheme should not be implemented in 2010, but that the time table between now and then should not prevent you from reaching a solution which most of those concerned believe is a sensible use of the money reflecting the realities of the work.  Can you give me some assurance on that?

Carolyn Regan:  We obviously need to address some of the issues which have been raised today and that is why discussions will continue, I think I am right in saying at least on a very regular basis so that we can resolve the issues raised, some of which have come up today and some of which have come up in our previous discussions.  So we are aiming for 2010 but we will obviously continue the discussions with a view to resolving those outstanding issues.

Q68  Chairman:  Implementation in 2010 is not necessarily precluded by changing aspects of your scheme or even allowing a little more time, for example, for the research to influence both the scheme and the way that people respond to it.

Carolyn Regan:  Absolutely.  Obviously we want to take into account both that research and the research that has been commissioned by the Family Bar from another consultancy; so both of those are relevant.  There are other drivers, of course, on family law which we are looking at, together with the Bar and the Law Society – for example, costs of medical experts which has been mentioned – and all of those discussions form part of our recommendations to ministers.

Chairman:  We will continue to take close interest in this.  Thank you very much for coming this afternoon.