Legal aid cuts and employment law
Impact of Legal Aid cuts on employment law
Employment law is one of those areas where there has been very limited access to legal aid (only an initial interview generally) so many might think that the legal aid cuts won’t impact on this very important area of law. But that would be wrong.
With employee legal problems, due to the lack of legal aid and fact that it is not easy to get no win no fee advice from employment solicitors, the Citizen’s Advice Bureaus around the country have fulfilled a vital function in helping employees decide how to deal with problems at work such as unfair dismissal, discrimination, bullying and harassment.
If the legal aid cuts do go ahead it is very likely that Citizens Advice Bureaux won’t have sufficient funds to help the more than 3,00 people a year they currently help.
This in turn may well have a counterproductive knock on effect for the Government. More employees will be forced to run their own cases. The Employment tribunal is free to use and generally the process is slower than other courts, so a lot of extra tribunal time could well be taken up with people representing themselves with even less knowledge of the law or rules. This in turn means more expense in running the Tribunal system which could be more expensive than the current situation where a Citizens advice advisor is a very cheap and effective alternative to using solicitors.
What do you think ?
