NATIONAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE ADVISORY BODY
COMMUNIQUE
28 September 2012
The National Legal Assistance Advisory Body held its fourth meeting in Sydney on Friday28September 2012. At its meeting, the Advisory Body discussed a range of key legal assistance issues including the effectiveness of public legal assistance services, integration of legal assistance services with the broader social service system,civil law legal assistance services, reforms across the legal service system, the review of legal assistance programs and early intervention in criminal law. Please find below the key outcomes and discussion points from the meeting.
Effectiveness of public legal assistance services
The Law and Justice Foundation of NSW has developed a discussion paper on the ‘Effectiveness of public legal assistance services’. The paper defines effectiveness, analyses why it should be evaluated in the legal assistance sector and identifies some considerations in accurately measuring effectiveness. The Advisory Body noted that this paper complements the current review of legal assistance programs and effectively highlights the limitations on evaluating the effectiveness of legal assistance.
This paper will be available on the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW website in the near future.
Integration of legal assistance services with the broader social service system
The Advisory Body consideredhow legal assistance services integrate with the broader social system for disadvantaged people. To date, the Advisory Body has focused its attention on how referral practices can be strengthened between legal assistance services and the Department of Human Services (DHS). This is important as both service providers target much of their service delivery to disadvantaged clients, resulting in a substantial overlap in their client base. Since the Advisory Body commenced considering this issue, DHS representatives have become involved in a number of legal assistance jurisdictional forums and the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD) has begun to meet regularly with DHS.
The Advisory Body noted that there was a co-location trial of DHS and legal assistance services in Tasmania, and permanent facilities in Darwin and Batemans Bay, which provide a one-stop shop for clients in need. AGD is liaising with the DHS to identify ways in which collaboration between the service providers can be strengthened to best meet the needs of disadvantaged people.
Civil law legal assistance services
The Advisory Body has, over several meetings, considered information on the provision of civil law legal assistance services. The information illustrated that there are stark differences in the availability of civil law legal assistance across Australia. These differences are greater in civil law than in any other area of legal assistance. As there are strong links between civil law problems commonly experienced by disadvantaged people and their ability to participate in social and economic life, it is the Advisory Body’s view that national consistency in access to civil law legal assistance services is desirable, subject to available resources.
Reforms across the legal service system
Legal assistance jurisdictional forums
The Advisory Body noted that legal assistance jurisdictional forums are working effectively to promote shared learning and collaboration across the sector in most states and territories. Jurisdictional forums are attended by Commonwealth government, state/territory government, legal assistance services and other service providers (such as DHS). The Advisory Body noted the key themes being discussed at the forums, including better collaboration, referral and discussing ways of working better together.
The review of legal assistance programs
AGD updated the Advisory Body on the review of legal assistance. The review commenced on 1 May 2012 and is being undertaken by the Allen Consulting Group. The review is being undertaken in two parts. Part A is reviewing legal aid commissions only against the performance indicators and benchmarks of the National Partnership Agreement on Legal Assistance Services. Part B involves an evaluation of the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of all four Commonwealth-funded legal assistance programs and their contribution to legal assistance as a national system which is holistic, client based and encourages ‘joined up’ service delivery.
The review is on track. The draft evaluation framework was first released for public consultation in July 2012. In September 2012, there was a pilot in Queensland of the data collection tools that will be used in applying the draft evaluation framework. From November 2012 to January 2013, there will be a national data collection phase.
The Advisory Body will take an ongoing interest in the progress of the review.
Early intervention in criminal law
Dr Rick Brown from the Australian Institute of Criminology gave a presentation to the AdvisoryBody on opportunities for early intervention in criminal law, based on analysis of how to predict recidivism based on first offences. Of particular interest, there are significant correlations between the nature of a young person’s first offence and the likelihood that they will reoffend in the future. Similarly, the younger a person is when they commit their first offence, the more likely they will be a high volume offender (committing at least five offences). This demonstrates that many young high volume offenders have multiple and recurring legal problems. It also demonstrates that effective early intervention and integrated case management approach could, if effectively targeted, help to prevent some of these young people from becoming repeat offenders into adulthood.
Information about the Advisory Body, including terms of reference and membership, is available at Enquiries can be directed to the Secretariat at .
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