The government is legally required to produce an equality impact assessment examining the effects of any proposed major reforms. The assessment relating to the proposed major reduction in legal aid was published in draft form when the green paper came out last November.

The government has proposed wide-ranging changes to reduce spending by excluding from eligibility legal advice and representation in some categories of case and save £350m a year out of a £914m annual civil and family legal aid budget by 2014. Out go private family law cases, including divorce and child residence cases, unless domestic violence, forced marriage or child abduction is involved. Out go clinical negligence cases. Other categories to face the chop are education, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, and welfare benefits, except where there is a risk to anyone’s safety or liberty, or a risk of homelessness.
 
The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment makes no bones that the principal driver for reform is financial. It acknowledges that the key groups likely to be affected by the proposals are legal aid clients with matters falling in the categories of law to be removed from the scope of legal aid funding. It admits that tackling disputes in different ways, or of disputes remaining unaddressed, may lead to a deterioration of case outcomes, which might be less fair than beforehand. It also admits that legal aid recipients are amongst the most disadvantaged in society, reflecting both the nature of the problems they face as well as the eligibility rules for legal aid. “Clients who no longer receive legal aid might potentially experience a negative impact on their health. This may stem from the outcomes of disputes being resolved less fairly and this having an adverse impact on health due to the subject matter of the dispute, e.g. housing, employment.” Women are more likely to be affected by the proposals than men. Of those clients who would be affected by the civil proposals, 57% are women and 42% men.

Quoted in the ‘Guardian’, Emma Scott, director of Rights of Women, which is campaigning against the changes, said: “We know already that in family law women are the majority of applicants for legal aid. In 2006, 62% of all applications for legal aid were for women. If you remove legal aid for women to sort out the finances after marriages break down, we know it’s really difficult to represent yourself.”  She also warned against the redefinition of abuse under the proposals. “What they are saying is that legal aid for family law cases will continue to be available where domestic violence is a feature, but they define it as woman being at risk of physical harm. It’s absolutely far too narrow. Psychological abuse is widely recognised by this government, and the UN, as abuse, but this change doesn’t,” she said. The shadow solicitor general, Catherine McKinnell, said: “I believe that [these] legal aid proposals are part of a wider trend, evident under this government, whereby cuts – undertaken for political, not purely economic, reasons – are being targeted at vulnerable people not able to fight back.”

The full text of the MoJ’s Impact Assessment can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/legalaidiascope.pdf

On Monday Ken Clarke took his knife to legal aid. The scale of the reductions revealed in the Green Paper  – £350m a year to be taken out of a £914m annual civil and family legal aid budget by 2014 – had been widely anticipated. The total bill of civil and criminal legal aid currently runs to £2.1bn a year, and a substantial contribution towards the reduction of 23% over four years in the Department’s budget was inevitable.

So far so predictable. But the surprises come in the parts of the legal aid budget that he has decided to protect. In his Commons statement he said: “I do not propose any changes to the scope of criminal legal aid… I plan to retain legal aid for asylum cases, for debt and housing matters where someone’s home is at immediate risk and for mental health cases. It will still be provided where people face intervention from the state in their family affairs that may result in their children being taken into care, and for cases involving domestic violence or forced marriage. I also propose that legal aid should remain available for cases where people seek to hold the state to account by judicial review and for some cases involving discrimination that are currently in scope. Legal assistance to bereaved families in inquests, including for deaths of active service personnel, will also remain in scope.”

The axe falls elsewhere, and the criterion is those areas that are not considered of sufficient priority to justify funding at the taxpayer’s expense. Out go private family law cases, unless domestic violence, forced marriage or child abduction is involved. Out go clinical negligence cases. Other categories to face the chop are education, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, and welfare benefits, except where there is a risk to anyone’s safety or liberty, or a risk of homelessness. According to the ‘Guardian’, there will be a reduction of 246,000 private family law cases predicted to save £178 m a year; a reduction in welfare and debt cases of 123,000 cases predicted to save £22m a year; around 43,700 fewer immigration cases predicted to save £18m a year; and 6,100 clinical negligence cases a year, saving £17m a year. These are the deepest and the most far reaching cuts since legal aid was created.

In response to the proposals of the coalition government, Clark’s Labour shadow Sadiq Khan said that they too would have cut legal aid, so it is a done deal. Opposition can only come from pressure groups. The Law Society said the changes to funding civil litigation confirmed their worst fears and is considering strategies for defending access to justice against the proposed cuts and responding in detail the Green Paper. Peter Walsh of Action against Medical Accidents said:  “Whatever the Ministry of Justice would save by scrapping legal aid will cost the NHS many times more. At the same time, the overall effect of changes will hit the poorest hardest, denying them access to justice even if they have been seriously harmed by negligence in the NHS.” Writing in the ‘Guardian’ Steve Hynes of the Legal Action Group said: “More than half a million people, half of all people assisted by civil legal aid each year, will lose out on being able to get help with housing, benefits, employment, debt and other legal problems. These are often truly desperate people.”

Linked with these cuts the Ministry of Justice has announced a very detailed consultation paper ‘Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales’, aimed at providers of publicly funded legal services and others with an interest in the justice system. The consultation runs from 15 November 2010 to 14 February 2011, and the full text can be found at:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/legal-aid-reform-consultation.pdf

The Ministry of Justice is substantially reforming a number of its public bodies. Ten of the department’s public bodies will no longer operate as non departmental public bodies or as statutory bodies. Six will be abolished and four will be merged with other existing bodies. Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly said: “This announcement marks an unprecedented step towards enhanced transparency, increased accountability and greater efficiency of all public services.”

Bodies to be abolished are:

• The Public Guardian Board, which scrutinises and reviews the way the Public Guardian – charged with the protection from abuse of people who lack capacity – discharges his functions.

• The Legal Services Ombudsman, charged with protecting the interests of the consumers of legal services.
 
• HM Inspectorate of Court Administration, which inspects the systems that support the Crown, county and magistrates’ courts in England and Wales.

• The Victim’s Advisory Panel, which enables victims of crime to have their
say both in the reform of the Criminal Justice System and in related developments in services and support for victims of crime.

• The Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, which keeps under review the administrative justice system as a whole with a view to making it accessible, fair and efficient.

• Courts boards (19 out of 21), which work in partnership with Her Majesty’s Courts Service to achieve effective and efficient administration of the courts.

The Legal Services Commission, which runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, will become an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. The Crown Court Rule Committee’s functions will be transferred to the Lord Chief Justice in consultation with other rule committees, and the Magistrates’ Courts Rule Committee’s functions will also be transferred to other rule committees.

The Youth Justice Board (YJB) will cease to function as a public body and the leadership of youth justice and functions of the YJB will move into the Ministry of Justice. Jonathan Djanogly said: “This organisation has helped to transform the delivery of youth justice and has fulfilled an important role in reducing offending and re-offending by young people. Now is the right time to look more radically at the arrangement of youth justice, including the role of the YJB, ensuring that a dedicated focus on rehabilitation needs of young people is driven forward in the future.”

Ken Clarke has been a big beast in the Westminster jungle for a long time and he more than most understands how the pecking order works. A minister’s standing in the eyes of his own and other departments is directly related to his success in standing up to the Treasury in any budgetary negotiations. On this basis, the Ministry of Justice’s above average cut of 23% in this week’s spending review is not good news, but he is such a wily operator that it is most unlikely that he would be wrong footed by a rookie Chancellor of the Exchequer. The suspicion must therefore be that he has got more or less what he wanted.

The upshot is that the department’s budget, which is currently £8.9bn a year, will fall to £7bn by 2014/15, seeing on average a 6% reduction in each of the four years covered by the spending review. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the MoJ will seek to make savings by reform of sentencing, improving the treatment given to mentally disordered offenders and through the increased use of public/private sector initiatives to reduce re-offending. The £1.3bn funding to maintain the current prison estate will continue, but plans to build a new 1,500 capacity prison have been put on hold. There will, he said, be reform to the criminal justice system, the closure of underused courts and a reduction in the legal aid bill. The Law Officers Department, comprising the Offices of the Attorney General and Solicitor General, will see a 25% reduction to its budget, and the Crown Prosecution Service will be required to greatly reduce its cost base. He said there needed to be access to justice but at a fair cost to the tax payer.
As always, the devil will be in the detail, and that will be revealed next month when the department concludes the consultations on reductions in legal aid and the proposed closure of 157 magistrates and crown courts. Already it is clear that there will be a saving of £350m in the legal aid bill and that most, if not all, the programme of court closures will be carried out. The department has produced outline plans for changes to court business hours, including weekend and evening sessions, in the forthcoming magistrates courts business strategy with the aim of improving access to justice and making greater use of the court estate. Other key priorities are the saving of £1bn from administration and frontline efficiency, including a one third reduction in administration, meaning 14,000 jobs will go; the courts and tribunals system will be brought together in a single agency; and the central London estate will be reduced from 18 buildings to four, saving £40m.

Legal aid has never been a vote winner, so it was an all too easy target in the government’s spending review. Law Society president Linda Lee said: “While the figure of £350m is less than some had feared, losing this amount of money from the system will inevitably prove to be a significant blow to legal service provision and access to justice. A creaking system is going to be less able to deliver the needs of the vulnerable in society. It is a basic feature of a democratic society which supports the rule of law that vulnerable people, whether they are children, or have mental health or housing problems, are accused of crimes or have suffered loss, are able to have access to legal advice and representation to secure justice.” For his part, Secretary of State Clarke said: “We need to create a justice system that punishes the guilty, reduces re-offending, protects our liberties, and helps those most in need. Over the period of this spending settlement the Ministry of Justice will be transformed into a lean, transparent, and affordable department.”

The full text of the Spending Review can be found at:
http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sr2010_completereport.pdf

Despite reservations expressed by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the Bar Standards Board (BSB) is currently piloting an aptitude test that assesses analytical and critical reasoning, and fluency in the English language. Reasons given by the BSB for introducing the test included the belief that the standard of admission to such an expensive course is too low, particularly regarding fluency in English, concern that too many students are taking the course with no realistic prospect of pupillage, and the wish to reduce the numbers of Bar students to manageable proportions.

The BSB conducted a voluntary pilot last year, in which 182 people took part. A second pilot is compulsory for all those starting the course this month, which is intended to provide a more detailed examination of the suitability of the proposed test as well as enabling the necessary sampling and analysis to ensure that the test is fair for all applicants. The BSB hopes that the aptitude test will be fully implemented for those starting in 2012. According to website Legal Futures, Nigel Cooper QC, chairman of the bar professional training course sub-committee, said: “The BSB wishes to ensure that the aptitude test is fully piloted prior to its introduction and is therefore proceeding cautiously. The first pilot was a limited exercise, designed to consider the general suitability of the test. A second pilot will now be conducted in autumn 2010, as planned, to enable more detailed testing and the accurate setting of the pass threshold. This is necessary due to the need to ensure the aptitude entry test will be fit for purpose before it is finalised and becomes an absolute entry requirement.” In its report to the Ministry of Justice last year, the OFT said that the BSB’s aptitude test was overly restrictive and anti-competitive, would have a significant effect on competition and its aims could be achieved by a less restrictive route.
 
It now appears that the Law Society is playing catch up with the BSB and is considering an aptitude test for entrants into the Legal Practice Course (LPC). Legal Futures report that the Society has appointed a consultant to investigate whether to require prospective students to pass a test before being allowed to start their vocational training. The proposals have been developed by the society’s education and training committee, at the request of chief executive Des Hudson, because of the increasing disparity between the number of LPC graduates and the number of available training contracts. Details of the consultancy project are still being finalised, but it is hoped that a report will be received by late 2010 or early 2011. The aim is to stem the tide of students flooding into the field only to find once they have finished the LPC that there are simply no jobs. It is argued that such a test would stop students from incurring large expense (the LPC can cost up to £12,500) in return for little reward, and help law firms maximise the value of the time invested in training. The OFT’s suggestion was that the BSB test should be optional rather than compulsory, and that could apply to any test for the LPC. Ultimately any LPC test would be for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to introduce, but if students still chose to take the LPC despite the test suggesting that it might not be for them then that would be their responsibility.

The full text of the OFT report “Application by the Bar Standards Board to Amend its Training Regulations” is at:-http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/reports/professional_bodies/oft1086.pdf

Legal aid minister Jonathan Djanogly has announced plans to scrap a £2.6 million per year training contract grant scheme. Since the scheme began in 2002 more than 750 trainees have benefited from grants of over £20,000 each to help cover their training fees and salary. The Legal Services Commission gave the grants to legal aid firms to allow them to fund 100% of the tuition fees of the Professional Skills Course, and to contribute towards Legal Practice Course fees and the trainee’s salary for the two years of their training contract.

The Ministry of Justice claims that the cut is an important cost-saving measure. Their spokesman said that when the scheme was introduced, financial inducements were needed to attract more young lawyers into the legal aid market, but now there are too many lawyers chasing too little work. “The grant scheme was a laudable idea, but the long-term future of legal aid is still assured, with enough young lawyers continuing to enter the profession,” he said. Those whose training is already being funded will be unaffected.

The decision has provoked anger from critics who say that the abolition of the scheme will undermine small legal firms who recruit from under-privileged backgrounds, as well as reducing the number of lawyers working in areas such as immigration and crime. Many will not be able to afford to undertake the lower paid work, and the decision could result in new lawyers turning toward more lucrative legal career paths. Laura Janes, chair of Young Legal Aid Lawyers, said: “If the government takes away this tiny but important lifeline, the kind of people who want to use the law to help ordinary people will no longer be able to afford it. This government has not even commenced their analysis of the legal aid position yet, and they already seem to be committed to getting rid of diversity in legal aid provision,” She added: “The provision of these grants went some way toward sustaining the flow of talented entrants into the legal aid sector, and making sure that legal aid work is not a closed door to applicants from poorer backgrounds.”

Lord Bach, former legal aid minister, condemned the move, saying: “This is a mean decision which will lead to some skilled and committed young lawyers not choosing the legal aid path, but looking to other parts of the law. Everyone knows that there may have to be some savings in the total legal aid budget, but to cancel this superb scheme which has worked so well for the last 8 years in order to save £2.6 million, looks petty and incredibly short-sighted.” Beth Forrester of the Junior Lawyers Division said: “The JLD is acutely aware that the current financial climate has had a grave impact on the availability of training contracts throughout the profession, but we are very disappointed to see that those junior lawyers in particular, who are looking to progress in an area of law which is of maximum benefit to the community, are going to be hardest hit.”

Last word to Laura Janes: “In this age of financial austerity, there is going to be more need than ever for the safety net of legal aid. What steps are the government going to take to ensure there is a next generation of properly supervised, qualified legal aid lawyers? Firms are dropping like flies and those left are going to be relying on armies of unqualified paralegals, who cannot deliver the level of quality the government claims it is committed to.”

The Ministry of Justice have announced plans to close 157 magistrates and county courts in England and Wales, at a saving of £36.8m.

In a written statement to the Commons on 23 June, Secretary of State Kenneth Clarke said that Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS) currently operates out of 530 courts, some of which do not fit the needs of modern communities. Their number and location do not reflect recent changes in population, workload or transport and communication links over the years since they were originally opened. Consultation papers have been published setting out proposals to close 103 magistrates courts and 54 county courts and inviting views on how best to provide local justice services in communities across England and Wales. He said: “In reaching decisions on closures I will ensure that we keep courts in the most strategically important locations, communities continue to have access to courts within a reasonable travelling distance, that cases are heard in courts with suitable facilities and that there is an overall reduction in cost.” Closure of the courts covered in the consultation would achieve running cost savings of around £15.3 million per year. These courts also have backlog maintenance of around £21.5 million, costs that can be avoided if the closures go ahead. “I believe that as well as savings to HMCS there will also be savings for other criminal justice agencies by focusing their attendance at a single accessible location within a community.”
 
The Secretary of State added that current arrangements are historical and now need to be reassessed to see if they meet the needs of today’s society. Modern communications and greater transport facilities mean that providing access to justice does not require a courthouse in every town or city. He said that, across the civil and criminal courts, there are great opportunities to harness technology more effectively so people do not necessarily have to physically attend court when they give evidence or access court services. Not all disputes need to be resolved in court. “I will also examine ways of enabling more people to resolve their disputes in a way that leads to faster and more satisfactory solutions. We will continue to develop proposals for introducing alternatives that deliver a better service for less money.”

Courts Minister Jonathan Djanogly said: ‘The Lord Chancellor and I are keen to hear the views of everyone with an interest in local justice arrangements. He will take all views into account before making any decision on which courts ought to be closed and when. As well as consulting on the courts we need today I want to begin a conversation about how the courts service could be modernised to improve the justice system as well as reduce its costs.”
The closing date for consultation responses is 15 September 2010. The full list of courts threatened with closure, together with links to the consultation documents, can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/news/announcement230610a.htm

The Ministry of Justice has announced a further analysis of expert witness fees paid in legal aid work. It is seeking the support of civil and criminal legal aid solicitors in a data collection exercise being conducted on their behalf by the Legal Services Commission.

This follows a consultation exercise carried out last year on legal aid funding reforms. A response to the main consultation was published in December last year, but this did not include the proposals relating to experts’ fees. A further analysis, published in March this year, showed that 270 responses were received to the part of the consultation paper on experts’ fees. The majority of respondents were against imposing either fixed fees or the suggested hourly rates on the basis of current knowledge. There was a strong message from all categories of professional expert witness that if inadequate remuneration rates are imposed, this would lead to more experienced practitioners refusing to undertake the work, potentially leading to access and quality problems across England and Wales. It was accepted that something should be done to regulate rates charged as they were often variable and too high.

MoJ felt that several expert groups would be keen to assist them in gaining a better understanding of their work and better control over both price and quality. They therefore proposed a data gathering exercise to increase their understanding of the type of work experts undertake and what current rates are paid for this. Undoubtedly this is in response to the National Audit Office’s highly critical report to Parliament on the procurement of criminal legal aid in England and Wales and the Public Accounts Committee’s savaging of the Legal Services Commission. The PAC said: “Because the Commission is the sole buyer of legal aid, it is important that it knows it is paying the right price for this and the effects its policies are having on the sustainability of providers. But it does not know enough about the costs and profitability of firms to know if it has set its fees at an appropriate level”. To help analyse and validate the findings of this exercise, and work towards establishing fixed fees and hourly rates, where appropriate, MoJ also propose to set up a working group including expert witness representative bodies and other interested stakeholders.

The LSC has issued a request for participants in a file review of  experts costs in legal aid work to ensure that the information collected is as comprehensive and representative as possible. The Commission has asked that practitioners send any recently closed legal aid case files that include invoices for expenditure on one or multiple expert witnesses, for inclusion in the review. They need to receive a representative sample across Family (certificated); Clinical Negligence (certificated) and Crime, for a list of specified matter types. The exercise will not include an examination of the costs of instructing interpreters. Practitioners willing to contribute to the file review should contact the LSC’s Chester office as soon as possible. The data collection exercise will be taking place over 7 or 8 weeks from the beginning of May.

For the text of the letter of invitation go to:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/legal-aid-expert-witness-fees-letter.pdf

For the full text of “Legal Aid: Funding Reforms Part Three: Experts’ Fees” see:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/legal-aid-funding-experts-response.pdf

Up to 75% of criminal legal aid firms will be removed from the market under far-reaching reforms set to be implemented from summer 2011. The Ministry of Justice has announced new proposals for the tendering of criminal legal aid services with the aim of delivering significant savings to taxpayers and a more sustainable future for the legal aid budget It is claimed that the proposed new tendering process would also lead to greater efficiencies for suppliers enabling them to be profitable and sustainable, whilst ensuring that legal aid is available to those most in need.

The proposals would see the criminal legal aid market restructured so that there are a smaller number of large contracts contracted across a Criminal Justice Area, with multiple contracts let in each CJS area. In future there are likely to be no more than eight to ten contracts per CJS area. Arguments are advanced for moving quickly towards a consolidated market that will enable firms to remain viable through access to greater volumes of work. Individuals would continue to have a choice of legal representatives from among the pool of providers who hold contracts. Under the proposed model, contracts would be let for the full range of criminal defence work from the police station through to the Crown Court, with cases followed through to their conclusion. All contracts would include a share of police station and magistrates’ court duty work. The claim is that contract holders would therefore have greater access to the higher value, more profitable work, including the ability to undertake Very High Cost Cases.

In an interview with the ‘Law Gazette’, legal aid minister Lord Bach said: “These proposals are likely to affect a large number of small and medium-sized firms, but the current arrangements are unsustainable. Solicitors have been telling us for some time that the amount they get from legal aid is not enough to keep them profitable. These plans will generate greater efficiencies for suppliers, help people access good advice, and get a better deal for the taxpayer.” He estimated that no more than 500 firms will get contracts, which would mean that up to 75% of the 1,700 firms doing criminal legal aid work face an exit from the market. At the launch of the proposals Jack Straw said: “We have a duty to ensure that the legal aid budget is used effectively and efficiently on behalf of the taxpayer. Even with the necessary savings and reforms, our system of legal aid – civil and criminal – will still be far and away the best funded in the world.”

Responding to the new proposals, Law Society President Robert Heslett said: “We have long argued that the current situation is not sustainable in the medium to long term. We agree with the Ministry that reform is needed”. But he added: “The model proposed by the Ministry bears little resemblance to the market as it is currently structured, and it is not clear how, nor how quickly any move to such a model could be implemented without causing serious disruption to service provision. We do not have an economic environment in which firms will find it easy to make the necessary investment to expand as much as would be required.”

The full text of the MoJ report “Restructuring the delivery of criminal defence services” can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/docs/restructuring-delivery-criminal-defence-services.pdf

Announcing last week that reforms of the law on libel will be taken forward in the next Parliament, Justice Secretary Jack Straw said: “Our current libel laws need to achieve a fair balance between allowing people to protect their reputations from defamatory allegations, and ensuring that freedom of expression and the public’s right to know on matters of public interest are not unnecessarily impeded. At the moment, we believe that the balance is tilted too much in favour of the former”.

The reforms will build on the work of the Libel Working Group, which was established by the Ministry of Justice in January to consider reforms to the law of libel, and whose report was also published last week. The report focuses on four principal areas in which the case for reform has been urged with particular emphasis: libel tourism; the role of public interest considerations in establishing a defence to a libel action; the rules about multiple publication, with particular reference to the internet; and procedural and case management issues relating to the conduct of libel litigation.

Under the MoJ’s proposals, the current multiple publication rule will be replaced with a single publication rule. This will ensure that claimants in libel proceedings cannot bring a case against every publication or download of a story repeating the same claims. Instead, claimants will only be able to bring a single action, within one year of the date of the original publication. The interests of people who are defamed will be protected by giving the court the power to extend this period where necessary. Consideration will also be given to a statutory defence to protect publications that are in the public interest. It is claimed that this would help address the ‘chilling effect’ that the threat of libel proceedings can sometimes have on investigative journalism, which occurs when media outlets and NGOs are cautious about publishing important information due to the threat of legal action. The government also plan to move to prevent the growth of ‘libel tourism’, when foreign claimants use English courts to make libel claims against foreign publications outside the EU which can be accessed in the UK. This will include asking the Civil Procedure Rule Committee to consider tightening the rules where the court’s permission is required to serve defamation cases outside England and Wales. The aim is to head off inappropriate claims at the earliest stage and stop them from reaching court.

Many commentators welcome the proposed reforms but feel that they do not go far enough, particularly in regard to a public interest defence, where more commitment is sought. The Libel Reform Campaign claims that our libel laws are stacked in favour of claimants, reporting that none of the 154 libel proceedings in 2008 identified in the Jackson Review of Civil Litigation Costs (see blog posted on 19 January) were won by defendants. On costs, they state that the most expensive libel action cost £3,243,980; that the average cost for the 20 most expensive trials was £753,676; and that the average cost of a libel trial in England & Wales is 140 times the European equivalent. An earlier government attempt to reduce the costs of libel cases – reducing the success fees that lawyers can charge in defamation cases from 100% to 10% – has been held up in the Lords by a “motion of regret” tabled by the former Commons speaker Lord Martin. The Ministry of Justice is planning to make parliamentary time available to prevent the order being killed off before the election.

The full text of the Libel Working Group report can be found at:-

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/docs/libel-working-group-report.pdf