WESTERN AUSTRALIA LAW AND JUSTICE FOUNDATION COLLABORATIVE PLANNING RESOURCE – JURISDICTIONAL DATA 2015 The Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales (LJF) Collaborative Planning Resource (CPR) is intended to support the planning of legal assistance services by Australian jurisdictions. In 2015 this resource will be delivered in two parts: The LJF Collaborative Planning Resource – Service Planning (CPR-SP) summarises the research evidence on legal need and access to justice and the implications for planning legal service delivery. The geographical location of legal services, while important, is only one key aspect of planning and delivering effective legal assistance services to those most in need. Recognising the variation between different priority groups and the overlap between them, services can be targeted at identified client groups; timely to client’s experience; appropriate to varying legal need and capability; and joined-up as part of a holistic response. i Service design is likely to vary accordingly. For instance, reaching hard to find groups through other (often non-legal) services with which they have regular contact. The CPR-SP also provides useful information for designing appropriate legal services for specific priority demographic groups: ‘who’ priority clients are, ‘what’ types of services are appropriate to their legal needs and capabilities, and ‘how’ these services might be delivered. The LJF Collaborative Planning Resource – Jurisdictional Data (CPR-JD) brings together three sets of information relevant to making decisions about legal assistance provision: • The geographic distribution of the Commonwealth’s priority groups for services • The prevalence of experiencing legal problems for each priority group • The geographic distribution of those most likely to be in need of legal assistance services for financial or other reasons. Other information will also be relevant to service planning. Individual jurisdictions may have access to relevant information such as data on the location of existing legal assistance services and their existing client base, private solicitorsii, other social services, crime, family violence, debt, accidents, natural disasters, business closures and other external factors that may increase demand for legal assistance. The LJF will issue new versions of the CPR-JD as new information becomes available. The data provided is available for a range of geographical boundaries. Please contact the LJF on (+61 2 8227 3200) or via email ([email protected]) to discuss the options available or to provide feedback on the current version. Version & date Key amendments Authors JPR 2015 - Part 1 Version 1 provided data at LGA level Catriona Mirrlees-Black & Sarah May 2015 Williams CPR-JD 2015 Text changes. Additional data and maps providing SA2 Catriona Mirrlees-Black & Sarah 5 August 2015 distribution of priority groups Williams This report is provided under embargo for the purpose of collaborative planning pending publication of both parts of the Collaborative Planning Resource by the LJF. While due care has been taken in preparing the material presented in the JPR 2015, the LJF is not responsible for the use, interpretation or application of the material or its suitability for any particular purpose. WESTERN AUSTRALIA SECTION 1 - PRIORITY GROUPS The Australian 2015 National Partnership Agreement (NPA) on Legal Assistance Services between the Commonwealth of Australia and the states/territories identifies a number of priority groups for legal assistance services. These are people whose capability to resolve legal problems may be compromised by circumstances of vulnerability and/or disadvantage. People in priority groups are more likely to experience legal problems, and/or less likely to seek assistance or able to access services for a range of reasons. The 2015 NPA requires Australian legal assistance service providers to focus Commonwealth funded services on people experiencing financial disadvantage and, where appropriate, to plan and target their services to people who fall within priority client groups. The NPA provides the following list of priority groups for guidance: • Children and young people (under 25) • Indigenous Australians • Older people (over 64) • People experiencing, or at risk of family violence • People experiencing or at risk of homelessness • People in custody and prisoners • People residing in rural or remote areas • People who are culturally and linguistically diverse • People with a disability or mental illness • People with low education levels; and • Single parents. The NPA requires Australian states and territories to use an evidence base to identify priority clients and the geographic locations in which people have the highest levels of legal need. The CPR-JD 2015 supports this activity by providing information for each jurisdiction on the geographic distribution of • the priority groups for legal assistance services identified by the 2015 National Partnership Agreement (NPA), and • those people most likely to be in need of legal assistance services for financial or other reasons. The data provided here is intended to complement other information available to jurisdictions for planning, including administrative data and other information relevant to the demand for legal assistance. Law and Justice Foundation CPR-JD 2015. Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data. Page 2 WESTERN AUSTRALIA SECTION 2 - PREVALENCE OF EXPERIENCING LEGAL PROBLEMS The best available measure of the extent of legal problems at state/territory level is the LAW Survey.iii The survey also identifies the personal characteristics that increase the chance of experiencing a legal problem. However, because it is a survey of only a sample of the population, the number of people interviewed in smaller geographic areas, such as LGAs, is generally insufficient to provide robust measures. There have been previous attempts to estimate the prevalence of legal problems in LGAs using information about the extent to which people with particular characteristics experience problems and applying to this the population profile of an LGA. However, these estimates are likely to have a wide margin of error and, therefore, may not be useful for distinguishing between areas.iv Area-based measures of disadvantage, such as SEIFA, are also limited as indicators of legal problem prevalence, in part because the experience of legal problems is widespread and not necessarily related to the characteristics included in the index.v About half of Australian residents will experience a legal problem every year. Some people, due to their personal circumstances, are at increased risk of experiencing a problem, such as single parents, people with a disability and the unemployed.vi Having more than one type of disadvantage increases the risk significantly.vii Not everyone who experiences a legal problem will identify it as such, and not everyone who does will prefer a legal response or seek legal assistance. Further information from the LAW Survey on priority groups’ strategies for managing their problems is provided in CPR-SP. The table below shows the average percentage of each priority group that experienced at least one legal problem in a year. These figures from the LAW Survey are for groups that in some cases vary from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Census definitions. A comparison of priority group definitions is provided in Section 13. NLAS(Capability) Group NLAS(Capability) Group NLAS(Indigenous) Group NLAS(CALD) 15 over and population LGA - people disadvantaged Financially 15 over and income personal - people disadvantaged Financially ages all income household education low with People people Unemployed parents Single 24 youth under and and Children 15-24 youth Disengaged People 65 and over People with a disability 18-74 15 over and Australians Indigenous Culturally and linguistically diverse people (CALD) Homeless people Outer regional/remote LGA has correctional facility Percentate of people experiencing legal problems in WA (LAW survey 2012) 52 48 n/a 45 60 74 50 n/a 38 65 55 42 n/a 47 n/a Law and Justice Foundation CPR-JD 2015. Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data. Page 3 WESTERN AUSTRALIA SECTION 3 - NEED FOR LEGAL ASSISTANCE INDICATORS (NLAS) Given that the experience of legal problems is so widespread, and not everyone will require or prefer a legal response, an alternative approach to service planning is to focus on identifying who is most likely to need access to legal assistance services once a problem has been experienced. That is, focusing on those people who are least likely to have the personal or financial resources to manage their own problems and are most likely to be eligible for legal assistance services. To facilitate this alternative approach to service planning, the LJF has developed the concept of the NLAS indicator. NLAS(Capability) Legal needs research has consistently highlighted that some people are less capable of managing legal problems themselves. Legal capability is defined as the personal characteristics or competencies necessary for an individual to resolve legal problems effectively.viii It generally comprises capabilities across a number of domains including sufficient cognitive, communication and literacy skills to successfully seek and obtain legal information or assistance.ix Legal assistance services generally focus on people with low capability. These people are often less able to use self- help and unbundled services effectively and are unlikely