My Lords, subject to later comments about funding and the issues raised by my noble friend Lord Beecham, I have a great deal of sympathy with my noble friend Lord Dubs in wanting to have some kind of transparent appeal decision. It is clear from our debates on the Bill that local authorities will be called upon to make decisions which will have a fundamental impact on people living in their local authority area—eligibility, care plans, personal budgets, support for carers, self-funders baseline assessment and many more. We know that this will be hard for many people and their families to navigate. At the moment, it appears that the Government are relying either on local authorities themselves to develop their own mechanism, which might not enjoy public confidence, or on referrals to the Local Government Ombudsman. As my noble friend Lord Dubs says, that would be on the basis of maladministration rather than, perhaps, on the facts of the case.
Judicial review is hardly an option for many people. The reduction in legal aid will have an impact on the ability of places such as law centres to take JR cases forward on behalf of clients. I am the patron of Birmingham Law Centre, which has had to close its doors. In the last few years, the law centre was able to undertake a number of JR cases but it is no longer there to do that. The availability of a simple, low-cost appeal system would command some support.
When I was DWP Minister, I attended a day at the Birmingham tribunal centre looking at how cases were conducted. I was impressed at the ability of the three-person panels to allow the complainant to put their case across in a fairly informal setting with decisions made pretty rapidly. We know that these tribunal systems have been used more frequently with the introduction of the new arrangements. They command some public confidence. While I do not want to add to the financial burden on the system as a whole, I wonder whether it would be cost effective, as my noble friend Lord Warner says, for there to be a simple, fast, low-cost system. This will give people some confidence that, where they felt that the local authority had not made a reasonable decision, there would be allowance for it to be reconsidered. I am sure that this is a matter for discussion between Committee and Report and perhaps the noble Earl would be prepared to meet with my noble friend to discuss this further.