EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, ENGLAND

         

 

Legal aid: Unjust cuts

The need for reform and a more cost-effective system is undisputed – but careful analysis must come before savings

Government ministers, notoriously, have no time to think about the way they do their jobs. That is why the excellent Institute for Government, mobilising the afterthoughts of former ministers, does the thinking for them. This month they have been discussing how fast and how far reform should go – and the case for a touch on the foot brake in time to avoid the perils of an emergency stop. Members of the coalition should make time to read it. There is still time to slow down.

The latest political row erupted over Ken Clarke's justice policy, with a bit part for defence after David Cameron suggested the top brass should do less talking and more fighting. The strategic security and defence review may be a case apart. But the impact of the cuts in legal aid are a powerful argument for a different way of doing government. It is not only the short-termism of slashing free legal advice. Take family justice. It is now being examined for the eighth time since the Children Act 1989, but still no one knows what cases involving family matters – from divorce to care proceedings – actually cost the public purse. This week, consultation on the interim report of the latest review ended: the report is due in the autumn. But Mr Clarke's legal aid reforms, cutting £350m out of the budget, pre-empt careful analysis.

The need for reform, and for a more cost-effective system, is undisputed. The family justice review speculates that the cost of the entire groaning, overloaded family court system – only likely to be exacerbated after Thursday's report into the death of another toddler, Ryan Lovell Hancox – could be in the region of £1.5bn. Care and other public law cases take nearly £1bn of that, but the rest is the cost of so-called private law – that is, cases arising from divorce. Unless violence is involved, these will no longer be eligible for legal aid and costs will have to be met by the people involved. Professionals acknowledge that too many of these cases come to court, and welcome the proposal for greater use of mediation. But one result, as the justice ministry knows, will be even more litigants in person who, it accepted this week, tend to take more court time and come out worse than if they were represented. Meanwhile children, whose interests are supposed to be at the heart of the process, endure delay and inconsistency and, according to the children's commissioner, go through an unavoidably distressing process only to be left feeling ignored and confused. This is a system failing all the way from the back office, where the family justice review found "an almost unbelievable" lack of management information, to the children at the sharp end. Change is needed. There are savings to be made. In that order.

The euro: A project in peril

The catastrophe in Greece is merely the starkest incidence of long-running flaws within the eurozone

Discussions of the Greek debacle commonly assume that it's a disaster made in Greece that now requires the rest of the Europe to step in and sort it out. Wrong: this is a crisis of the eurozone, in which Athens is not a leading actor but merely a stage set. The catastrophe that has been unfolding in Greece over the past year is merely the starkest incidence of long-running flaws within the eurozone. The disaster that European and IMF officials are currently struggling with in Athens naturally has particularly Greek idiosyncrasies – a tax system leakier than a sieve, for one. Still, were this strictly a Greek problem, afflicting an economy worth around only 3% of the eurozone's GDP, it could be contained with some adept statecraft (admittedly a quality rather lacking among the current crop of European ministers). But this meltdown goes wider, as a glance at Dublin, Lisbon or even Madrid will confirm: it is the inevitable product of the design faults of European monetary union. Unless those flaws are fixed, the single currency will remain under existential threat.

Throughout the 90s, as Jacques Delors was brokering the deals that created the euro, the discussion among policymakers centred around whether such a disparate bunch of economies really could hang together. This was a natural anxiety, to which the Eurocrats' answer was the Maastricht treaty's economic entry criteria. Not only were those rules flouted – Belgium and Italy were allowed in, despite breaking the laws over debt – they were also stupidly mechanical (why allow in countries with a deficit of 3% of GDP, but not 3.1%?). They were also deflationary, forcing countries to keep down borrowing, and making no mention of economic growth. The same went for the European Central Bank, whose job is to keep inflation below 2%, even amid massive recession.

The result is that eurozone governments from Dublin to Tallinn have one monetary policy alongside 17 different fiscal policies and 17 different banking systems. This was always a nonsense, although it took a financial crisis to expose it as such. As governments have been forced to prop up their banks, broke European states like Greece have had to rely on the ECB and other institutions to keep their financial systems afloat. That transfer of cash from "core" Europe to the periphery is a baby step towards a common fiscal policy. There is also the European stability mechanism, which will allow eurozone states to bail out a stricken neighbour much more easily – again a small move towards a common European treasury. The details of these policies barely get reported, let alone debated – and they smack of a new economic order being built brick by brick without consulting the electorates who will ultimately have to stump up for it. But if the euro is to survive with all 17 members, and as a rival to the dollar, ministers will have to think up more such policies, such as issuing a common eurobond.

Crucially, they must also win the consent of voters. Eurozone policymakers too often treat democratic accountability as a luxury rather than a necessity, as shall be made amply clear this week when Brussels will force the Athens parliament to pass a raft of sharp spending cuts, tax hikes and privatisations – despite the hostility of Greek voters. Finally, the balance of the continental economy must be altered. For most of the past decade, the picture of the European economy has been of sluggish Germany and France lending money to bubbletastic Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece. That model was great for northern European banks and businesses, but terrible for everyone else. If the single-currency zone is to continue, policymakers will need to think about instituting caps on how much member states can export to each other – and put far more emphasis on stimulating demand at home. This is a challenging list, to be sure, but an economic project that cannot meet it does not deserve to be in business.

In praise of … a regional base

The housing of Sir Alan Ayckbourn's archive at York University underlines his successful decision to eschew the capital

Sir Alan Ayckbourn has been praised here before, four years ago, when he announced his retirement as director of Scarborough's Stephen Joseph theatre. The accolade then was primarily for his extraordinary dramatic output, which continues in spite of a stroke. His 75th play opens in September, and so far this year he has had a play on stage or in rehearsal in the UK every day. Now we learn that his archive is to be housed at York University, with instructions to make it accessible to as many people as possible. This is of a piece with Sir Alan's refusal – in the face of many offers – to move to London. His success undermines claims that networking and convenience make the capital a sine qua non. This has never been true of academia, medicine, the church and science, whose best-known centres of excellence – Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Newcastle upon Tyne, Canterbury, York, Harwell, Daresbury – are well outside the M25. The ease of digital communication must surely encourage more to stick to their regional guns – Ayckbourn's stash at York will increasingly be available anywhere at the click of a key; David Hockney, always up for adapting his art to new technology, spends ever more time in Bridlington. "I'm sitting here in the sunshine overlooking the sea. Why should I be anywhere else?" says Sir Alan. A good question for corporate executives, the media and politicians. When the 100th Ayckbourn hits the boards, as he fully intends, we hope many more reply: "Spot on. Us too."