An Introduction by new AJC Academic Panel Co-Chairs, Professor Linda Mulcahy
and Professor Joe Tomlinson

We are delighted to take up our roles as co-chairs of the Academic Panel.
We know high-quality evidence and analysis, which academics are well-placed to provide, can play an important role in improving the administrative justice system for all who use it.
In our first few months, we have been listening to colleagues and stakeholders about how the Academic Panel can most effectively contribute to the AJC's work.
We are now developing a programme of activities that combines both longer-term thematic work with more agile and responses modes of engagement. We look forward to sharing more details of our planned activities in due course.
 

Dr Sarah Nason (Bangor University; AJC Advice Sector Panel member) introduces her communities and connections project.  

Summer 2022 saw the start of a new research project examining the role of communities and connections in social welfare legal advice. The project is one of six, co-funded by the Nuffield Foundation and British Academy, seeking to inform policy and practice on how communities can improve well-being across the UK.

This project is assessing how people from different localities and marginalised and/or diverse communities access social welfare (legal) advice. It aims to increase our understanding of relationships between communities and access to justice and identify opportunities to improve access to social welfare (legal) advice. The demand for social welfare (legal) advice is growing, yet the capacity of the voluntary sector is shrinking and changing to a remote advice delivery model. Small locality-based and identity-based organisations, including those with connections across diverse communities, can play an important role, but there is little understanding of how they interact with the broader advice sector. This research gap reduces the ability of policy makers and practitioners to respond to local needs and overcome barriers to access. 
 
The research team are conducting a literature review, stakeholder workshops, survey of social welfare advice providers, focus groups, interviews with people with advice needs, and social network analysis in four case-study areas: Anglesey, Dartmouth, Rochdale and Hackney.
 
The research team includes, Bangor and Exeter Universities, the Advice Services Alliance, Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation, and the Ministry of Justice.
 
You can find out more about the project here: https://swladviceandcommunities.com/ and also follow the team on Twitter: @SWLCommunities
 
The project team are especially interested to hear from people with experience of providing advice services and/or working in or with community organisations in either of the four case-study areas (Anglesey, Dartmouth, Rochdale and Hackney). Project PI, Dr Sarah Nason, would be delighted to hear from you at: s.nason@bangor.ac.uk
 

  

 

A preliminary briefing report from the first phase of a local, qualitative legal needs study in Coventry led by Dr Tara Mulqueen (Warwick Law School) Dr Lisa Wintersteiger (Law for Life and Advicenow) and Claire Stern (Central England Law Centre), and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, has been published:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/aboutus/linc/research/local_legal_need_project_-_briefing_november_2022.pdf

The study develops co-produced research with trusted intermediaries on the experiences of marginalised groups in dealing with law-related issues, particularly during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and as the cost-of-living emergency continues. It focuses on emerging issues, barriers to access to justice, and how these interact with legal and digital capability. The briefing provides an insightful on the ground perspective on these issues, through the observations of frontline organisations who work closely with marginalised communities and who provide essential support for access to justice as part of their broader work. 

The emerging findings highlight the prevalence of issues related to welfare benefits, housing and homelessness, immigration, employment and social care as well as the ways in which systemic barriers exacerbate issues with legal and digital capability. For example, someone who is in extreme poverty due to reductions Universal Credit may need to pawn their phone, which in turn means that they miss important calls and are unable to access essential services and support to which they may be entitled. The increasing reliance on digital technology creates further barriers, for example by making it difficult for someone without regular access to technology to manage their Universal Credit claim, leading to punitive sanctions which further entrench disadvantage. Prior negative experiences and a feeling of having ‘gone round in circles’ create fear, anxiety and lack of confidence, while being in ‘survival mode’ makes it difficult to navigate complex systems, alongside low levels of knowledge of rights.

The emerging findings also emphasize the pivotal role of trusted intermediaries – organisations like foodbanks and social supermarkets, mental health charities, housing providers, and support and advocacy organisations - in providing practical support for people from marginalised groups to access justice. However, more is needed to understand the extent of their capacity and willingness to play this role, as well as the support needed to enable them to do so effectively alongside specialist legal advice and representation.

The next phases of the research will feature in depth interviews with individuals who have been supported by the intermediaries and direct accounts of their experiences, as well as a public legal education project with the intermediaries focused on tackling the issues identified in the study.

by Lainey Gough (Director of Operations and Impact, Access Social Care) 

Access Social Care is a young and ambitious charity which has quickly expanded over the past two years. We specialise in community care law and have a specialist legal team who provide both one off advice and ongoing casework support.

We are extremely conscious of the broken system our team works within. The combination of a crumbling social care system and the 78% reduction in early legal help for community care cases means that our clients come to us in crisis, dire situations and with nowhere else to turn. Our staff feel a huge responsibility to the clients they work with which can be stressful and difficult. The challenging years that we have all faced has also had an impact on people’s resilience at work.

Our people are our biggest asset and we want to ensure that staff have the tools to be able to face these difficult challenges at work. To do this, we have put in place a range of support structures:

• Whole team coaching. As an entirely home-based service, the team can feel isolated and disparate. Over the course of a year the team had a series of coaching sessions. This has created trust and support within the team and embedded relationships within individual members;
• Individual coaching. Various staff members have identified particular stressors within their lives which is impacting on work. Individual coaching has given staff the tools needed to support with some of these challenges;
• Modelling within our plans the need for the team to have time away from casework and work on other project based matters;
• Establishing a wellbeing steering group that rolls out new initiatives each month;
• An employee assistance programme that offers counselling support;
• A wellbeing fund that staff can apply to which can be used to fund anything that promotes healthy wellbeing such as counselling or gym membership; and
• Piloting a partnership with Drs in Distress.

Drs in Distress traditionally work in the medical sphere offering small group reflective practice facilitated by a psychotherapist. We ran sessions once a week over a 10-week period. We found that the opportunity to meet in a small group, without an agenda but a focus on supporting each other is beneficial. Now that the sessions have ended the team are still choosing to meet and finding this helpful, but there is a need for these sessions to be facilitated and facilitated by someone with an understanding of their work. We are looking for funding to enable this to happen.

 

The Online Procedure Rule Committee (OPRC)

Progressing Digital Justice

 

The Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 contained clauses to create the Online Procedure Rule Committee (OPRC). The proposal for the OPRC originated in the Briggs Report of 2016 and was created as an enabler for HMCTS Reform programme. Similar clauses have been before Parliament twice previously, but both Bills fell due to general elections.

The Rule-making powers of the OPRC cover the Civil, Family and Tribunal jurisdictions, and will have powers to set data and behavioural standards for online disputes resolution providers. The OPRC will provide a framework to seamlessly transfer cases that have not been successfully resolved in the pre-action space to the online courts system.

The OPRC will consist of six members and will be chaired by the Master of the Rolls. The three judicial members are appointed by the Lord Chief Justice with the agreement of the Lord Chancellor and three members appointed by the Lord Chancellor – a legal member, an IT expert and a lay member from the advice sector. We are currently recruiting the three non-judicial members through the Public Appointments process and expect to confirm the appointees in spring 2023.

A key amendment to the OPRC clauses was to extend the OPRC’s remit to include setting standards for online dispute resolution as well as setting the data standards in the pre-action space so that disputes which cannot be resolved online can ‘rollover’ into the online justice system. We are currently considering the types of proceedings that will be included in the OPRC’s initial programme of work, prior to making an affirmative Statutory Instrument conferring powers to make rules in these jurisdictions.    
 
The OPRC has four key aims:

• Greater access to justice
• Greater efficiency of resolving disputes
• Greater transparency
• Providing a justice system which can help contribute to the Rule of Law in an increasingly technological society

The OPRC is part of wider work looking at increasing access to justice online, within the civil, family, and tribunal jurisdictions. This is something that the senior judiciary are keenly supporting, and it builds on the increased use of technology during the pandemic, leading to people being more comfortable accessing services online. We are considering how dispute resolution organisations can use technology to support people to resolve their issues more quickly, as well as helping users understand their case and what options are available to them.
 
Any work completed in this area would need to be iterative and user focused. There are a number of existing digital tools that are representative of the kind of resources we may consider developing: 
 

• An online signposting tool, available on GOV.UK, which helps users to understand their options for addressing housing disrepair issues in private rented accommodation, which is signposted to users by local authorities; 
• The Child Arrangements Information tool; 
• The Official Injury Claim (“Whiplash”) Portal; 

• The Finding Legal Advice and Information page on Gov.uk 

 
Future consultation

We are delivering a webinar to online dispute resolution providers and ombudsman services shortly, to provide them with an update on the OPRC. We are also going to request that they complete a survey, including AJC members, which will help us better understand the industry and to help us to identify a broad spectrum of providers to engage in greater detail.
 
Once the survey results have been analysed, invitations will be sent out to a broad range of ODR providers to hold some roundtables in the new year which are designed to help us ask more specific questions. It will be an opportunity for us to bounce ideas around, ask questions and provide direct feedback from the industry to the OPRC. For any stakeholders not attending the forum, we will be sending out quarterly newsletters. 
 
Finally, please do keep in touch with us. There will be a quarterly forum, which will provide a good update of our activities, but if there is anything else you would like to know then please do reach out to us.
 
For more information contact Laura Glazebrook Laura.Glazebrook@justice.gov.uk
 

How central Government handles complaints about services will be transformed by new Complaint Standards.

The UK Central Government Complaint Standards have been developed by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), in collaboration with central Government departments, other public bodies, and advice and advocacy groups.

Organisations including the Cabinet Office, Department for Transport, HMRC, and the Food Standards Agency are acting as trailblazers for the Standards. They will lead the way in embedding the Standards in their organisation and will work with the PHSO to further develop and share good practice across Government.

The Standards were created following research that revealed:

• more than two thirds of people didn’t think their complaint to public services would be listened to;
• 44% thought complaining would not make a difference;
• almost a third said they would be worried that complaining might affect how they were treated by the organisation in future.

 
The Standards aim to improve this situation by helping organisations provide a quicker and simpler complaints handling service that:

• promotes a learning culture
• welcomes complaints in a positive way
• is thorough and fair
• gives fair and accountable responses.

 
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Rob Behrens said: “By adopting the Standards, organisations will resolve more complaints at the earliest opportunity and use learning to improve services for the public.

“Mistakes happen, but how they’re handled can avoid them being repeated and make a big difference to those affected. It’s no exaggeration to say that in some circumstances this could be life-changing.

“I’m glad to see support for the Standards. I hope that senior leaders across central Government commit to embedding them as part of creating a culture where complaints are embraced and welcomed as opportunities to learn.”

In developing the Standards, the Ombudsman also held a consultation with Government complaints handlers, the public, and third sector and advocacy organisations. The results showed widespread backing for the Standards, with 82% saying it was clear what they were trying to achieve and 91% supporting their aims.

Feedback from this consultation further highlighted the need for reform. A respondent working in the third sector told PHSO: “From consultation with our community, it is clear that they face a complicated and confusing complaints landscape.”

Find out more about the UK Central Government Complaints Standards.