Strategic Plan 2011–14
Performance summary
April 2015
Victoria Legal Aid, Strategic Plan 2011–14 Performance summary April 2015
Page 1 of 11
Table of contents
Executive summary .......................................................................................................................... 3
Key achievements ........................................................................................................................ 3
Overall performance ........................................................................................................................ 4
Performance against strategic goals and objectives ................................................................... 4
Performance against commitments.............................................................................................. 5
Appendix 1 Performance against commitments .............................................................................. 6
Victoria Legal Aid, Strategic Plan 2011–14 Performance summary April 2015
Page 2 of 11
Executive summary
The Strategic Plan 2011-–14 was launched in June 2011 and took effect from July that year.
The plan set the direction for Victoria Legal Aid over a three year period and was underpinned
by the objectives of the Legal Aid Act 1978 (Vic) and the National Partnership Agreement on
Legal Assistance Services (NPA). The plan set out to achieve outcomes under three priority
themes:
Strategic goal: To deliver
timely and respectful access
to the justice system; to help
people resolve legal
problems and protect rights
Strategic goal: To build
strong effective relationships
with other organisations for
the benefit of our clients
Strategic goal: to enhance
organisational capability to
respond to a changing
environment
The services we provide have been guided by the themes and goals we committed to in the
Strategic Plan 2011–14, and have underpinned our business plans over the last few years.
Our approach to measuring performance was through a series of activities and nine strategic
commitments. Overall, performance against the Strategic Plan is generally positive. Progress
against most commitments has on the whole been strong and in many respects the
achievements over the last three years have laid important foundational work for our future
directions. More detail on the final outcomes against each commitment is provided in Appendix
1.
Key achievements

Strong performance for information services and an increase in participants for community
legal education which has supported our early intervention and prevention strategy.

More accredited specialists in the areas of children’s law, immigration and administrative
law. As children are a priority client group, the increase in accredited specialists for
children’s law is considered significant as at the outset of the plan Victoria Legal Aid had
no specialists and now has 20. An increase in the number of specialists across a number
of law types is seen as a key strategy to improving the quality of legal services.

Continued increase in referring clients to other support services with the aim to provide
more client focused assistance.
Overall performance
Performance against strategic goals and objectives
The objectives and activities set out in the Strategic Plan have been very successful in driving
fundamental changes to the overall direction and operations of Victoria Legal Aid. The
emphasis on the earlier resolution of legal problems, the need to identify and prioritise clients
most in need, expansion and consolidation of services in certain areas of civil law, the quality
of legal services delivered (through the Panels Project and establishment of Victoria Legal Aid
Chambers), adopting a more holistic approach to addressing legal and other problems
(through referrals and law reform) and working more effectively with other organisations (for
example, through the establishment of the Victorian Legal Assistance Forum), together
generated a number of initiatives and changes to service delivery with a clear focus on
supporting the strategic commitments and ultimately the broader strategic direction set out in
the plan.
Victoria Legal Aid’s annual reports over the last three years have provided an indication of
services delivered against the priority themes. Aligning our key achievements against the
priority themes has demonstrated the extent to which the strategic plan guided service delivery
improvements over the life of the plan.
Performance against commitments
Our performance against each commitment is positive with only one showing as not achieved
against the intended outcome.
Table A – overall performance against commitments
Legend
Achieved
Not achieved
Partially achieved
Commitments
Helped more people with civil law issues and those from regional and rural
Victoria
More people benefitting from information, advice, community legal education
and other early intervention services
Reported what clients say about us and the circumstances of those people
we cannot help
More accredited specialists helping clients and improved the way children are
assisted
More women briefed in significant cases and more transparent practices for
briefing advocates who appear in court
Improved continuity in representation for legally aided clients and helped
reduce court delays
Measured and increased the impact of our contribution to justice reform
Monitored and increased the number of client referrals to ensure a more
complete service
More ‘joined-up’ services and more evaluations of services made with our
partners
Performance
Appendix 1 Performance against commitments
Helped more people with civil law issues and those from regional and rural Victoria
Outcome: Not achieved
Table 1 - Unique civil law clients overall
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–151
14,843
13,706
12,262
7,622
-7.6%
-10.5%
Table 2 - Unique clients in regional and rural Victoria
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15
26,805
25,872
24,305
14,611
-3.5%
-6.1%
Table 3 - Unique civil law clients in rural and regional Victoria
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15
3,449
3,158
2,771
1,534
-8.4%
-12.3%
While the overall numbers suggest we are providing fewer people with services, the raw data does
not provide an adequate picture of our deliberate policy decision to better target services and
ensure people are receiving more meaningful assistance for legal problems that are likely to have a
more significant impact on their lives.
We have increased services in our specialist practice areas including mental health and disability
advocacy, equality law and commonwealth entitlements, including more intensive services such as
grants of aid and duty lawyer appearances. However, during the same period we also reduced the
provision of one-off, drop in advice sessions across a broader range of civil law issues. These
clients now access the Legal Help telephone service, where many receive information or a referral
to a more appropriate service rather than one-off legal advice, affecting our client count.
More people benefiting from information, advice, community legal education and other early
intervention services.
1
Data sets for 2014–15 throughout this report are as at 31 December 2014 in line with the lifespan of the plan and
have not been provided for a full twelve months. This has been taken into consideration when determining
performance against each commitment.
Outcome: Achieved
Table 4 – Number of early intervention and prevention services/participants
Information services
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15*
76,129
81,790
111,576
67,238
+7.4%
+36.4%
51,598
46,178
-6.6%
-10.5%
12,770
16,542
+11.7%
+29.5%
146,158
174,296
+2.3%
+19.3%
Legal advice, minor work
55,255
and advocacy
Community Legal
11,434
25,147
6,766
Education participants
Total
142,818
99,151
Reported what clients say about us and the circumstances of those people we
cannot help
Outcome:
Achieved
We undertook three client satisfactions surveys in 2010–11, 2011–12 and 2012–13. Results
were reported in our annual reports and on our website.
We have improved our understanding and reporting of the circumstances of people we cannot
help in a number of ways. This has included:

the launch in late 2012 of the Legal Australia-Wide Survey: Legal Needs in Victoria report,
commissioned from the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW

Legal Help service realignment which has enabled better data recording and reporting

Our submission to the Productivity Commissions draft report on Access to Justice
Arrangements which highlighted the unmet civil law need in Victoria and the difficulties
with meeting the cost of this legal need.
More accredited specialists helping clients and improved the way children are
assisted
Outcome:
Achieved
Table 5 - Accredited specialists at Victoria Legal Aid
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15*
Criminal law
29
40
32
33
Family law
9
9
9
9
Children’s law
0
19
19
20
Administrative law
0
0
1
1
Immigration law
0
0
1
1
Total
38
68
62
64
The significant increase in the number of accredited specialists in children’s law will in turn
improve legal services to this priority client group. However, the increase in accredited
specialists does not capture the continuing work being done to improve the design and
delivery of services. Further work on improving the way children are assisted will be
incorporated into the overall review of family law services currently underway.
More women briefed in significant cases and more transparent practices for
briefing advocates who appear in court
Outcome:
Partially achieved
Table 6 - Women briefed by the Victoria Legal Aid staff practice in significant cases2
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
2014-15*
44%
52%
49%
43%
These results only take into account women briefed in significant cases. However, when
looking at women briefed overall the results are more positive as demonstrated in the table
below:
2
The results against this measure currently relate only to Victoria Legal Aid’s staff practice. Complex matters were
defined as all indictable or appellate cases, family law cases involving five or more appearance days, and all civil
Supreme or High Court cases
Table 7 - Women briefed by the staff practice
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15*
55%
53%
54%
50%
Victoria Legal Aid is committed to supporting women at the Victorian Bar with the current
intake of the Trial Counsel Development Program made up entirely of women.
Initiatives to have more transparent briefing practices include:

the summary crime briefing policy which enacts Victoria Legal Aid’s commitment to
increasing the amount and quality of advocacy conducted by staff

the introduction of a coordinated briefing policy for indictable crime matters that applies to
contested committals and trials

the extension of the indictable crime coordinated briefing policy to include County Court
pleas, appeals and supervision and detention orders under the Sex Offenders (detention
and Supervision) Act 2009.
Improved continuity in representation for legally aided clients and helped
reduce court delays
Outcome:
Partially achieved
Table 8 - In-house casework (grants of legal assistance) files handled by only one Victoria Legal
Aid lawyer
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15
71.0%
68.4%
66.9%
69.5%
Table 9 - In-house casework (grants of legal assistance) files retained by Victoria Legal Aid
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15
89.5%
88.5%
89.8%
91.3%
Other initiatives to help reduce court delays included:

the adult summary crime duty lawyer guidelines changes, which help duty lawyers and
support staff to prioritise eligible clients ensuring resources are targeted to those most in
need

the Block Briefing pilot in the Latrobe Valley which targeted County Court circuit delays

increased in-house advocacy to help resolve a client’s matter at the earliest opportunity
Measured and increased the impact of our contribution to justice reform
Outcome:
Partially achieved
Table 10 - Justice and law reform submissions
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15
35
25
23
6
Finding a valuable and meaningful way to gauge the impact of our contribution to justice
reform remains challenging, as measures aligned to volume or uptake of recommendations fail
to reward quality or recognise the complex policy environment in which law reform is driven.
Over the life of the Strategic Plan, Victoria Legal Aid has become more selective in
approaching reform to the justice system, with a greater commitment to supporting
governments in often incremental, long-term positive change and a focus on issues in which
we have particular expertise or unique insights compared to other agencies. This approach is
reflected in the downward trend in the number of submissions (see table 10).
Notable contributions during the life of the plan include the following:

Challenging public perceptions in relation to people smuggling by highlighting the way in
which mandatory sentencing provisions were leading to unjust outcomes through the
imprisonment of innocent people hired to crew boats. This ultimately triggered changes to
empower courts to exercise discretion in sentencing people charged with people
smuggling offences.

The significant uptake of our recommendations in the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s
report on the Crimes (Mental Impairment and Unfitness to be Tried) Act 1997, which arose
from our representations to the Department of Justice and the then Attorney-General on
the need for reform to improve practices and reduce court delays for mentally impaired
accused.

The publication of a comprehensive position paper containing recommended reform to the
infringements system, which has assisted the Attorney-General to frame further legislative
priorities in this area, after our representations led to the introduction of a right to rehearing
when a person faces imprisonment for unpaid fines;

Raising awareness of the incidence and impact of pregnancy discrimination, by having
clients describe their experiences in their own words as part of a consultation undertaken
by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Improving understanding of the importance of a well-funded legal assistance sector,
through detailed contributions to the Productivity Commission review of Access to Justice
Arrangements.
Monitored and increased the number of client referrals to ensure a more
complete service
Outcome:
Achieved
Table 11 – Client referrals
2011–12
2012–13
2013–14
2014–15
External
43,997
71,337
84,603
47,294
Internal
Not captured
6,078
9,890
6,786
The significant increases in the number of referrals made is primarily due to the work being
done through the Improved Client Access and Triage project. This work has seen significant
changes in how we provide services to people seeking legal help, by ensuring we prioritise
those most in need and providing referrals at the earliest opportunity to the most appropriate
internal and/or external service.
Not included in the above table, but worthy of note are internal referrals made within the Legal
Help telephone service. Of particular note is the increase in callers referred to the language
line to be helped by one of our bi-lingual staff. These referrals have increased significantly
due to the increase in bi-lingual staff at Legal Help.
More ‘joined-up’ services and more evaluations of services made with our
partners
Outcome:
Partially achieved
We have continued to pursue ‘joined-up’ service delivery which is reflected in the data on
increased number of referrals (table 11 above), the increase in community legal education
delivered with other organisations and the ongoing work around increasing outreach services
delivered in Community Legal Centres and other community agencies.
While we have progressed a number of service evaluations of our own, evaluations made with
our partners have not been fully progressed over the life of the plan and we recognise this was
a challenging target given our current level of maturity in this regard.
We have however, completed an evaluation with the Family Law Legal Service, which
provides a duty lawyer service at our Family Dispute Resolution Service (formerly Roundtable
Dispute Management). The report is currently being finalised and any findings and
recommendations flowing from the report will be incorporated into future planning.
Evaluation will continue to be a key focus for Victoria Legal Aid with our evaluation framework
rolled out during 2015. This is a key body of work which will help us to understand what is
being achieved, identify possible improvements, as well as meet the expectations and
reporting requirements of funders.