Courtesy of the Criminal Bar Association’s Twitter account, evidence has emerged of the Ministry of Justice’s attitude to submissions to its recently closed consultation on its proposed changes to legal aid, which masquerade under the misleading title of ‘Transforming Legal Aid’ (posts passim).
The Criminal Bar Association isn’t the only organisation that has received such information: the Bar Council has too.
Some cynics have already said that they knew the MoJ wouldn’t bother reading submissions. However, what the top screenshot shows is the deplorable lack of IT skills on show from the mandarins of Petty France: they are too thick to realise that their email system sends the originator a message if that email is deleted without actually being read!
Update: Doughty Street Chambers has since tweeted that the MoJ are apparently saying the deletions are an “erroneous technical glitch” and nothing has been deleted, as well as that people have been emailing legalaidreformmoj@justice.gsi.gov.uk to ask for a copy of their response so the MoJ can prove they still have those consultation responses.
Well, that second tweet from Doughty Street just shows how much confidence and trust in the MoJ has eroded.