UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 374-i

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

WELSH AFFAIRS Committee

legal services commission cardiff office

TUESDAY 24 march 2009

LORD BACH, MS CAROLYN REGAN, MR PHIL LAMBERT and MR PAUL DAVIES

Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 37

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

Oral Evidence

Taken before the Welsh Affairs Committee

on Tuesday 24 March 2009

Members present

Dr Hywel Francis, in the Chair

Nia Griffith

Mrs Siān C James

Mr David Jones

Alun Michael

Hywel Williams

Mark Williams

________________

Memoranda submitted by the Legal Services Commission and Lord Bach

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Lord Bach, a Member of the House of Lords, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice, Ms Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive, Mr Phil Lambert, Executive Director, Business Support, Mr Paul Davies, Director, Wales, Legal Services Commission, gave evidence.

Chairman: Good morning and welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee and this special inquiry into the Legal Services Commission Cardiff Office. Before I invite you to introduce yourselves, could I invite the Committee to declare any interests?

Mr Jones: I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members' Interests.

Q1 Chairman: Could you now please introduce yourselves?

Lord Bach: I am Lord Bach; I am the Minister for Legal Aid in the Ministry of Justice and the Minister in the House of Lords for the Ministry of Justice.

Ms Regan: Good morning. I am Carolyn Regan, the Chief Executive of the Legal Service Commission.

Mr Lambert: Good morning. I am Phil Lambert; I am the Executive Director for Business Support in the Legal Services Commission.

Mr Davies: Good morning. My name is Paul Davies; I am the Wales Director for the Legal Services Commission.

Q2 Chairman: I understand, Lord Bach, that you wish to make a very brief statement. Select committees are not great enthusiasts for ministerial statements but you have reassured us that this will be a very brief one.

Lord Bach: It will indeed, Chairman; thank you very much. As you know I am appearing before the Committee as the minister responsible for legal aid. The Lord Chancellor and I are ultimately accountable to Parliament for the activities and performance of the Legal Services Commission and my role in relation to the LSC is explained in the memorandum I supplied to you. The Legal Services Commission is an executive non-departmental public body and as such operates at arms' length from Ministry of Justice ministers and with a degree of autonomy over the operational decisions it makes. I am therefore very grateful to Carolyn Regan, the Chief Executive, and her colleagues, including Paul Davies - who is the Director for Wales and, I should add, the only director based on a geographic area in the whole of the United Kingdom - for appearing alongside me today. She and the others are frankly in a better position both constitutionally and in terms of operational knowledge to answer most of your detailed questions about the future of the Commission's office in Cardiff. I do want to stress that the Commission is committed to delivering a reduction of some 30 per cent in its administration budget, approximately £30 million over the next two years. This was an integral part of the MOJ settlement in the last spending review and formed part of the Government's wider efforts to ensure maximum value for the tax payer whilst safeguarding frontline services. I would invite the Committee to have its discussions around the future of the Cardiff office in that context. Thank you very much for allowing me the chance to make an opening statement.

Q3 Chairman: I am most grateful to you for that statement. I must say, however, that I am somewhat surprised that there is no acknowledgement in that statement of the developing devolution settlement and that is the beginning really of my questioning. Could you explain, Ms Regan, the actual process whereby the decision was taken to relocate the business support team in Cardiff against that background of devolution?

Ms Regan: We have had plans to meet our financial commitments which have been well-known to all our partners and also to our staff for about three years. As the minister said, the administrative budget for the Legal Services Commission is reducing by some 30 per cent over the current spending review period and therefore our plans are to maintain a strong presence in Cardiff which includes the director for Wales, and increased policy team and the front line of relationship managers working with the large number of providers, both legal aid solicitor firms and also not for profit organisations. What we are planning to do - partly in response to financial pressures but also, I have to say, in response to the need to automate a lot of our processes - is to centralise those support functions by which I mean the processing of claims and payment of bills.

Q4 Chairman: Clearly there is a great deal of concern in Wales not only about the apparent outcomes of your decision but also perhaps more importantly the process. Could you actually give details of the ministerial involvement in this decision? I come back once again to the point I made at the beginning about the devolution settlement; what is the nature of the ministerial involvement in all of this?

Ms Regan: Can I start by responding to the part about the process in terms of how we took the decision? The decision was made by the Commission, the chair and commissioners, the non-executive directors who form the board of the Legal Services Commission. It was also discussed on a number of occasions with the Welsh Assembly Government for, I think I am right in saying, a couple of years, most recently in April 2008. We have also had on-going discussions with other bodies and stakeholder groups in Wales and I will ask Mr Davies to come in in a moment. As I said, our plans have been known for about two or three years. What we are not proposing to do is to close the Cardiff office. In fact we will be, as I said, developing an increased policy team which will keep us in touch with the devolution issues and obviously inform the processing of bills and payment.

Q5 Chairman: Are you familiar with the role of the secretary of state for Wales in this situation? There is a mantra that we have used since democratic devolution namely that whilst we have devolution the secretary of state for Wales has a role to play in Whitehall and Westminster. Could you reassure us that you are aware of that and in that context what processes you have been involved in in engaging with the Wales Office?

Ms Regan: I am aware of the role and the issues involved. That is in fact why we have had a number of discussions. I have mentioned the Welsh Assembly Government but I know there has been contact via the Ministry of Justice and I know there has also been contact with Tom Jones who is a commissioner with specific responsibility for Wales on the board of the Legal Services Commission. Can I ask Mr Davies to add to that because he was party to those discussions?

Q6 Alun Michael: I am sorry; this has been a major issue with the Ministry of Justice and its agencies for a considerable time now, of not understanding the devolution settlement. You said that you had contact with the Welsh Assembly Government which is appropriate; did you or did you not have contact with the secretary of state?

Ms Regan: I personally did not have contact with the secretary of state.

Q7 Alun Michael: But you did with the Welsh Assembly Government.

Ms Regan: We did with the Welsh Assembly Government, yes.

Alun Michael: It sounds to me as if you do not understand the devolution settlement.

Q8 Chairman: Just to pursue that particular point, could I ask Lord Bach if your department had any discussions at all in relation to this decision with the secretary of state for Wales and the Wales Office?

Lord Bach: This decision was the decision of the Legal Services Commission as has been explained, I think. As the chief executive has just said, they talked to ministers in the Welsh Assembly for some years past, starting probably in 2006 and finishing off in 2008 with the decision announced. I do not believe that the department did have conversations with the Welsh Office. Can I say that it should have done. I put that on the record; it should have done either itself or through the Legal Services Commission. If we did not, we will learn a lesson from that.

Q9 Chairman: Mr Davies, you were going to say something following an earlier question.

Mr Davies: Yes, I just wanted to add some context around the conversations with the Welsh Assembly Government. When the original decision was announced to reduce our back office workforce in 2006 my predecessor actually had a discussion with the Welsh Assembly Government at that time to highlight that particular point. I also had conversations in April 2008 before any announcement was made.

Q10 Chairman: I am somewhat surprised by this word "conversations". It is slightly sliding from consultation to conversation; it sounds as if it is a chat over a cup of tea. What does that mean? Can you actually catalogue those conversations? Can you say when they occurred and what was discussed?

Mr Davies: I can from the time that I was involved with them which was April 2008 when I had a meeting at the Assembly Government with the minister for social justice and local government. There was myself and officials from the Legal Services Commission and also his officials where conversation was about the fact that we were looking to remove the back office processing from the Legal Services Commission, that in all likelihood it would be moved to Bristol. The impact of that would be that there would be staff who potentially could be at risk of redundancy should that actually move on. That full discussion with the minister started in April 2008 before our announcement to staff in November.

Q11 Chairman: Listening to what you have just said, it seems to us that a decision appears to have been made and then some sort of consultation happened afterwards. That is clearly the impression we get from stakeholders and the Welsh Assembly Government (we received a letter from the current minister of social justice which clearly implies that). What are your observations on that?

Mr Davies: It was announced at the time that the business cases needed to be fully written to investigate before the final decision would be made. We were advising the staff very early of our decisions that this was a likely way forward but it was certainly not the final decision. Indeed the business case for Cardiff is still under consideration within the Commission as we speak. No firm and final decisions have yet been taken on that particular aspect.

Q12 Mr Jones: Why did you alight upon the minister of local government to have your discussions with? Did you consider that he was the most appropriate individual?

Mr Davies: The government minister in the assembly that we talked to Brian Gibbons who is the social justice minister. He was the one we always go to because legal aid is part of the social justice system and the implications for that and as such is our key point of contact within the Assembly Government. We have meetings every six months with him to update him with all aspects of legal aid.

Q13 Mr Jones: I must reiterate what the Chairman has already said. I find it quite incredible that you had no discussions with the secretary of state for Wales. Did it never occur to you to do so?

Mr Davies: It is something, as Lord Bach said, that we did not do and we will learn from this.

Mr Jones: I understand you did not do it but what I cannot understand is that it never appears to have occurred to you that he was the appropriate person to speak to.

Q14 Chairman: We are now in a situation where you are acknowledging before us that a decision may not have been made, that you are now reviewing it in the light of what the minister has said and his apology to us. Legal aid is one thing, but the fact is that we are now in a period of growing devolution, increasing amounts of Welsh only regulation and yet I am surprised that none of you have actually made any reference to the situation of a growing body of Welsh only regulations. When are we going to hear your response to that?

Mr Davies: Our chief executive has already hinted at that particular aspect because it is something we acknowledge is growing and that is why, within the Welsh policy team, we are increasing the number of people. One of the things we are looking to do is to make sure that we actually capture all increasing bodies of law and make sure that we, as a Commission, are fit for purpose in terms of processing and understanding that. That is something that is very much on our radar at the moment.

Q15 Chairman: We are only ten minutes into this session and we have already had an acknowledgement and an apology from the minister. It sounds to me as if you are in the process of actually saying that you are going to start again and reflect on what is being asked of you.

Ms Regan: Can I just clarify the point that Mr Davies was making about the business cases? What we are charged with doing is making sure we have an administration that supports the various issues that you have raised and it is able to process about £77 million of legal aid currently spent in Wales, split between crime and civil. We are doing that by keeping very much the front end, the contact with clients (which I have to say is minimal on a weekly and monthly basis) and the significant contact we have with the 263 contracts in Wales with solicitors firms and with not for profit organisations. As Mr Davies said, we announced early on to our staff the direction of travel in terms of centralising the processing functions, but as we get nearer to each decision we are required to develop and to present a business case for each of the component parts, one of which is the changes proposed to the Cardiff office.

Q16 Alun Michael: There is another element that you do not seem to have considered. Given that this is not a devolved issue, has it occurred to you to consult the members of Parliament, particularly of Cardiff but also the other areas affected, and also particularly perhaps those of us who are members of the Justice Select Committee?

Ms Regan: Just to clarify, we have not formally consulted but we have had on-going discussions. I just want to clarify that point. Can I also add that with hindsight we should, as the Legal Services Commission, have spoken to the Welsh Office as the minister has indicated.

Q17 Alun Michael: Sorry, we have moved on from the Welsh Office; that has been acknowledged. I was asking about the members of Parliament, particularly those who are members of the Justice Select Committee, which includes two of us.

Ms Regan: Yes, I am very aware of that. When I was in Cardiff we did go and meet with Mrs Julie Morgan and had this conversation about a month ago.

Q18 Alun Michael: Presumably after she raised the concerns, as she and I have both done.

Ms Regan: In the light of the early concerns at the beginning of the year.

Q19 Alun Michael: Did it not occur to you to do that yourselves, in the same way that it did not occur to you to consult the Wales Office?

Ms Regan: Can I answer the point about the select committee as well? My chairman has also made contact with the chairman of the select committee with a view to having that discussion. He has not actually arranged a meeting but that is very much on his agenda for the reasons you outlined.

Q20 Alun Michael: So rather belatedly you are coming to that.

Ms Regan: If I go back to the previous point, what we announced was a direction of travel but we have not got to the stage of signing off the individual business cases and indeed that will go to the Commission at its May meeting. I have been asked to prepare a paper not just on this aspect but also on all the issues relating to Wales.

Alun Michael: I will just comment that Mr Davies' predecessor did take the initiative to contact members of Parliament and explain the work of the office. I think that would be welcome.

Q21 Mrs James: My question is very similar to Mr Michael's. I know that we have met with Mr Davies and Julie Morgan, myself, Jessica Morden (MP for Newport East) and have all expressed our concerns to you. What I do find surprising is that you were perfectly prepared to come and talk to us as members of Parliament but you did not think the process through to actually take it to the secretary of state for Wales. We would have made it quite clear to you in those discussions that we were part of the Westminster set up and very separate in this from the assembly.

Mr Davies: We have acknowledged the shortcomings.

Lord Bach: Could I just say that I am due to meet Mrs Morgan again this afternoon. I had a very brief chat with the first minister some time ago; he approached me at a cabinet committee meeting which he was present at. I am meeting the parliamentary under secretary, Mr David, tomorrow, among other meetings. Whilst we have acknowledged on our fault on this particular occasion and you can be quite sure it will not happen again, we are trying to make up for any mistake we made in the past. I have a series of meetings on this issue and I am hoping myself to visit Wales soon as well.

Q22 Chairman: We certainly welcome your statement, Lord Bach, and one assumes safely in the light of that it is not a cosmetic exercise and that the consequence of these meetings will be that you will take very seriously everything that has been said here and elsewhere, in the adjournment debates and what has been written to you, and that you are in effect saying that you are unpicking the mistakes that have been made and that you may well reverse the decision.

Lord Bach: I think I have to be very careful not to agree with you too much. Certainly I have put in a limited apology for not having approached the secretary of state. I have done that. As far as the decision is concerned, I think you are going too far in suggesting that that draft decision might be reversed. The Legal Services Commission will obviously have a view about that and decide and because of the nature of this particular issue of course I will be taking a very large role in looking at the proposal. I do not want the Committee to be under the assumption that this decision is going to be reversed.

Chairman: I recognise that, but I take from your statement that your involvement will be fair and robust and the problems with process which we have already identified will be corrected. Mrs James, do you wish to ask any further questions?

Q23 Mrs James: I would like to ask some questions about the level of service to the clients of Wales. We have certainly expressed our concerns and our doubts and I would like to home in on that. What impact on service quality does the Commission anticipate by providing services to Wales from England? Will the service capacity be affected?

Ms Regan: I will start and maybe Mr Lambert will want to come in. It is very important to say that we have very little direct contact with clients on a weekly or monthly basis. We have about ten visits of clients coming into the office in Cardiff and we can adequately cope with that and obviously we will continue to do that. We have a number of telephone calls a day mainly from providers, by which I mean solicitors and not for profit organisations, some of whom want to speak to us in Welsh and indeed we will continue to honour that commitment. Most of our transactions are paper based at the moment although we are moving towards automating a lot of the processing work on line. Currently a large volume of work is done in our Chester office; that has been so for a number of years. In answer to your question, I am not anticipating any reduction in service; indeed, I would anticipate an improvement in service by which I mean that we can process forms and claims much faster than we have done in the past and in fact in recognition of the current financial situation we now make weekly payments to all our providers which has been very well received for obvious reasons. I will ask Mr Lambert to add to that.

Mr Lambert: I think there are three watchwords, if you like, for what we need to achieve and those are productivity, service and value for money. That is where I am trying to drive the back office processing. The key thing is to get it all together and we do not have that at the moment within the Legal Services Commission. It is disparate, spread all over the place, and the objective is to bring that together where we can set some more robust key performance indicators and drive the level of service. That, on the back end processing, we will do. What we will also do is increase the use of technology and hopefully if we can get more stuff going through we can improve on the current level of performance that we are actually giving. That is our big objective across the Legal Services Commission at the moment. There is that important split between front end and the back office which I am responsible for. Carolyn has obviously talked about that front end and the relationship with the providers. The key thing for myself with the back end operation is to make sure we have that strong link with any changes and how legal aid needs to be delivered and that is also something we will do. Another factor is that we will maintain our ability to provide service in the Welsh language as well through the new systems we introduce, continue to operate as we do on a paper base and also, where appropriate, to be able to take calls and speak in the Welsh language as well. Hopefully we can cover all three angles of increasing the productivity, giving it a better service and therefore value for money as well.

Q24 Mrs James: Are you confident with the Welsh language services? Can you provide an adequate service and build on what you are already providing?

Mr Lambert: There are two aspects here, one is the technology and I am confident that we can build the service offering in to mirror the English offering effectively. I am confident on that. The second aspect is having people who are able to speak Welsh. At the moment we have people in Bristol who can speak Welsh and also people in the Cardiff office. Our strategy going forward is to maintain people in the Cardiff office who can speak Welsh who will support my back end processing wherever that is done. As Carolyn has also mentioned, the volumes coming through are not great in terms of people needing to speak in Welsh, therefore with two or three people who can speak fluent Welsh in the front end office we think will suffice and therefore we can maintain that level of service.

Q25 Mrs James: Given the status of the language and what is happening at the moment, are you hoping to build on those services? You have talked about few people using the services but obviously the more people you promote it to the greater the awareness and therefore figures should increase.

Mr Davies: We have been liaising with the Welsh language board recently. We had a very, very positive report from them last year about the aspects of the Commission to put in place and we are now working with them to renew our Welsh language scheme which actually has started to look at some of the new powers that Cardiff Bay have requested to make sure that we actually include those in our new scheme and also to look at how we can engender that across the whole of the justice system. My office is working with the courts, with the probation service, with the prison service and actually trying to make sure that we look at end to end Welsh language services out there. There is not a great take up at the moment but we are making sure that we have campaigns and posters in all of the courts and in the police stations so that people do know that the Welsh language provision is there. We have over 100 firms of solicitors across Wales who have a dedicated Welsh language speaker who can actually provide that sort of Welsh language service in the language of choice to any client that walks in. It is something we have at the moment and we are looking to build upon and include in our contract. It is a requirement for every contractor in Wales - whether that be solicitor or not for profit organisation - to have a Welsh language medium available.

Q26 Mrs James: I understand that your role will be changing and you will be taking on another role as one of the regional directors. What I am not certain about is what percentage of your time will you be allocating within the broader scope of the job to Welsh issues? Will there be a distinct percentage that you are allocating?

Mr Davies: I think there will be a minimum percentage but I would not want to limit it to just that. At the moment I look after England and Wales nationally but decisions made in England will have an equal impact in many, many cases to Wales. To say I would only spend, let us say, a day a week or two days a week on Welsh issues is hiding the fact that of the other three I am also making decisions that have an impact on both England and Wales. I would certainly be looking to spend no less than 20 per cent of my time regularly dealing with Welsh and Welsh only issues, whether that be through consultation with the Welsh Assembly Government, WLGA, the CAB Cymru and the various bodies we have there. I would make sure that at least 20 per cent of my time is dedicated to Welsh and Welsh only areas.

Q27 Mrs James: Will it definitely get the attention that it requires; it will not be limited in any way?

Mr Davies: No. I have been doing this combined job since January and I would say that I have spent at least 40 per cent of my time on average on Welsh only issues during that period. There is no limitation whatsoever, nor is it my brief to have any defined limitation. It is as the job requires, so Wales will get its requirement.

Q28 Chairman: Presumably, in light of earlier questions, the percentage you mentioned will increase simply because it is in the public domain, there are increased Welsh only regulations, we have the legislative competence order going through now; the Welsh language will impact itself. One assumes then that that percentage will increase.

Mr Davies: It may well do. That is why I have people in the Cardiff office who will stay there, who will grow with me; there are extra policy people to make sure that the support we need in Wales is maintained. Just to emphasise, it is not just me with a Welsh title, there is an office that will be sustained and grow with me to make sure that the supply and services are maintained and grown.

Q29 Hywel Williams: Mr Lambert, you mentioned earlier on automation; I assume that is the generation of correspondence. Do you know how HMCS has coped with it? There is a long and miserable history of complete inability to generate letters in Welsh. I am just worried that people in Chester who might not speak Welsh are merely pressing a button to generate correspondence and might not be particularly successful.

Mr Lambert: My chief executive tells me regularly that we cannot possibly afford to make any slips with that technology. I am very, very aware of the need to get this absolutely right. It is a big programme for us; it is a big cost for us, but it will actually make a massive difference. This is on my radar, very much flashing all the time. Let me give you that reassurance. I think the important thing is to know how to manage the exceptions in our processing. That is the key to how we handle anything that is going to be done in the Welsh language. We have other specialist parts of our processing, for example mental health asylum and those kinds of things where we have specialist teams. We will do something similar to cover the Welsh issues in terms of processing. It will not just run through a factory process; we will manage it as an exception to make sure we do the job that is required.

Ms Regan: The civil applications, I think I am right in saying, for North Wales are currently already processed in Chester and we have not had any of those problems you have alluded to.

Mr Davies: The Welsh Language Board has very kindly agreed to work with us in terms of our new processing. They have already helped us with our website and they have offered their assistance in terms of any due process. We are also working with HMCS so that any legal terms that need to be translated into Welsh will be consistent across the criminal justice system. Between all of us we believe that this is something we can actually make work.

Q30 Alun Michael: I would like to turn now to the organisation of matters in the wider area. With the current proposal, if it were to be pursued, the reduction of administrative capacity in Cardiff would coincide with the next round of bids for legal aid contracts. You will be aware that there is very considerable concern about the introduction of the Community Legal Advice Networks. That was already a concern when I met Mr Davies's predecessor some time ago and I should perhaps mention that I am Honorary President of Cardiff's Citizen Advice Bureau because of the importance I place on the advice received by my constituents. What are the plans for ensuring that there are adequate and immediate responses at the administrative level within the area?

Mr Davies: When we met about a year ago to talk about the plans in Cardiff, one of the things that we did talk about was the need to make sure that we are slick with our processes. We acknowledge that. However, the administrative staff in Cardiff would not be the staff who would actually administer any bid rounds. The administration staff in Cardiff would be the ones who would process the bills and payments and what have you. All the administration for bid rounds will be done by the relationship teams and the central procurement teams. I am looking after the relationship teams so we will still be in Cardiff going forward; they are not impacted by any decision we make. With the bid rounds coming the administration is being done in the same way as it always has been and will continue to be successful. It is not part of a reduction for the administration back office work that Mr Lambert just mentioned.

Q31 Alun Michael: Would it be possible for the Cardiff office to take on some of the work that is being moved rather than seeing it moved to concentrations elsewhere?

Mr Lambert: Yes it would. There are a number of options as to how we could play things. The important thing for us as a business is to maximise our productivity and our efficiency and ensure that quality of service. What we do have are a number of large centres where we can actually do that maximisation which happen to be in Liverpool, Newcastle and Nottingham. Our strategy is to build on those. Unfortunately Cardiff does not have the capability to take the work from Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle et cetera in the scale that would be necessary to build into the kind of centre that we need to create. That is why we are running with those three centres and then a couple of other centres in Bristol and London for support.

Q32 Hywel Williams: Mr Davies, you referred to a growing policy team in Cardiff and clearly the Committee has concerns that there should be adequate expertise for interpreting Welsh legislation, post devolution, particularly the Government of Wales Act 2006. Can you reassure us on this?

Mr Davies: Absolutely. The additional person that we will be putting into Wales for the policy role is specifically dedicated to having a link into the Assembly for an early discussion on any changes in the law, making sure that they feed that back in through the Commission into the processing side so that we can get our back end ready for any potential changes. They will also link into members like the Law Society and the justice system to make sure there is a joined up approach so that we actually can understand the divergence and we can support that. Of course most changes will be dealt with for clients by our provider base - the solicitors and the not for profits organisations - and it is their responsibility under the contract to know those changes themselves. We, as a policy team, will make sure that that is brought back into the Commission to support all of the client processing that we need to do.

Ms Regan: If I might just add, we will keep the scale of the policy team under review as things develop and obviously we can increase it if Mr Davies says there is a need to. We will do that.

Q33 Nia Griffith: Welsh legislation is expected in a number of areas including carer rights, housing, vulnerable children, mental health, environmental protection and so forth. How would a Bristol office cope with this?

Mr Davies: I would look at the way that we are going to set up our policy person to make sure that all changes in the law are fully understood, that the decisions as to what processes need to change. Mr Lambert's teams would then actually put that into practice and make sure that the processing side is dealt with. In terms of the client and the client care that is affected by these changes in the Welsh law, those will be provided face to face by the providers, by the solicitors and the not for profits and by our national telephone line who have dedicated Welsh language speakers on there as well. The client will actually get a full service, knowing the changes in law that go on through our provider base. We will make sure that we inwardly support that in terms of the processes that support the applications.

Q34 Nia Griffith: It is not just the Welsh language. The fact of the matter is that we are dealing with separate systems. We have announcements that are pertinent to England but we know things are done in a slightly different way in Wales. I worry about a phone line being sure that appropriate people are available and are not giving incorrect advice.

Ms Regan: As well as the phone line that has been referred to, there will still be Mr Davies's his staff in the Cardiff office. They will be doing the liaison, the interpretation of policy and assessing the impacts. From a client perspective, someone walking into the Cardiff office, they will not see any difference. They will continue to deal with their list of firms or their not for profit organisations like the CAB so they will not actually see a difference. It will be for Paul's team to do the liaison and the interpreting and making sure that we can respond appropriately.

Q35 Nia Griffith: I can understand about the Cardiff office but what about the business of the phone line? People do not always remember necessarily that things are different. I am worried that with phones you often get a whole range of people dealing with people. They are just taking the calls and the wrong information could actually be given to people.

Ms Regan: One of the pieces of good news is that we are actually increasing the telephone help line and we are creating 20 additional new specialist posts to meet that need in Swansea. That is operational as of next month. That is part of extending our responsibilities. Those people will be based in Swansea and will be able to respond for an increased time than is currently the case; that will include evenings and Saturday mornings.

Lord Bach: Could I just say that these telephone lines - the one that already exists and the one that is going to be set up in Swansea - are both contracted out in Cardiff to a very well known firm of solicitors and I believe it will be the same in Swansea. Part of the conditions of these contracts, as I understand it, is that the quality of the advice is an essential part of the phone line. As you quite rightly said the danger with phone lines is that you get someone who does not understand what the problem is and then gives not good advice. The quality side of this is something I know the Legal Services Commission is very keen on and I have to tell you that I, as minister, am particularly keen on, making sure that the advance in phone lines advice is quality driven rather than anything else.

Q36 Hywel Williams: You mentioned earlier on that there was a 30 per cent cut. In Cardiff you have people who are highly experienced and highly skilled. Did you consider the skills profile of your staff in Cardiff before you decided to relocate parts of the office?

Ms Regan: We are fortunate in having a very experienced staff in all our 12 offices, including Cardiff, and that was one of the considerations. We also looked at the volumes of work and the quality of work. The aim is indeed to improve our turnaround times and to actually speed up our processing which we are working on now. We did very much take the experience and the expertise of skilled staff into account in all our decisions.

Mr Lambert: I will try to give you some numbers which might help in that respect. We have 261/2 positions that we propose to remove as a result of this. Obviously it is difficult to be totally precise, but a couple of those positions will be supervisory roles. Of the rest approximately 50 per cent is actually going to be removed through the technology, through the improvements that we are going to make there and they are very much junior roles. What it loses is about ten positions that you would call really experienced case workers. There will be opportunities elsewhere within the organisation possibly, but equally, as Carolyn has just explained, we do have significant numbers of very experienced staff elsewhere. We have tried to take all of that into account. It has been a very difficult decision as you will appreciate but on balance that is why we decided what we did.

Q37 Chairman: I have one final question. Given the acknowledgements today that there have been gaps in the process - serious gaps from the perspective of this Committee - could you, Ms Regan, reassure the Committee that you are now looking at other options?

Ms Regan: I come back to the first point. I think there are things that we have learned and we need to take forward in terms of the process. I acknowledge that. In terms of the final decision, as I said earlier that will be subject to further discussion at the board in May. Clearly I will be feeding back tomorrow from this discussion and we will be taking these points and others made into consideration.

Chairman: As Chairman of this Committee I welcome that statement. We will, as a Committee, be monitoring very carefully what is happening over the coming two or three months and we will be seeking further evidence, not oral evidence but written evidence, before we complete our report. Thank you very much for your attendance.