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Legal Aid Western Australia

Online Quarterly Report 1 October – 31 December 2018

LAWA WEBSITE UNIQUE PAGE VIEWS ***

256,232TELEPHONE CALLS TO LAWA’S INFOLINE WITH AN OUTCOME OF SERVICE

13,328

Performance this Quarter2 QTR 18-19

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EXTERNAL REFERRALS FROM INFOLINE

6,355ADVICE, ADVOCACY & DOCUMENT PREPARATION

5,374

NEW GRANTS OF AID2,440

EXTENSIONS OF EXISTING GRANTS OF AID5,371

% OF NEW GRANTS ASSIGNED TO THE PRIVATE PROFESSION74%

DUTY LAWYER SERVICES13,694

FAMILY DISPUTE RESOLUTION MEDIATIONS 202RECIPIENTS OF COMMUNITY LEGAL EDUCATION 5,329

SERVICES TO PEOPLE EXPERIENCING FAMILY VIOLENCE** 10,178

REVIEW OF GRANTS

CONDUCTED

28OVERTURNED

4

** Services for CLC Resources, Law Reform, Publications and Stakeholder Engagement were not counted in this report for 2018-19.*** The category name for Item No. 2 changed from “LAWA Website Pages Views” to “LAWA Website Unique Page Views” from 2 QTR 2018-19.

1 | Legal Aid WA Quarterly Report 1 October 2018 – 31 December 2018

Priority Project Updates

Assessing times reducedLegal Aid WA (LAWA) is now consistently determining applications for aid, extension requests, reconsiderations, review and transfer requests within 28 days. Our assessing team has improved timeliness through a few innovations. These include a dedicated resource working on applications more than three weeks old; having triage staff process urgent grants; and new reporting to better manage workloads. Our speed in determining grants provides certainty to applicants and their lawyers. It also reduces the need for adjournments at court.

More legal informationLAWA is posting more than 30 new videos, fact sheets and animations on our website.

It is the authoritative source of legal information for the WA community and an important preventative service. The new material posted this quarter has a focus on family law and criminal law issues. The next tranche of new material will focus on civil law.

Reviewing our processesOver the quarter, LAWA staff reviewed four business processes. Relevant staff participated in workshops to map processes as they are. Further workshops mapped processes as they should be.

LAWA is rethinking and redesigning the way it works to improve work flows. Once all processes have been reviewed, LAWA will be ready to reduce cycle times, provide better services to the public, and eliminate staff frustration.

OUR WEBSITE IS NOW AVERAGING MORE THAN

85,000PAGE VIEWS EVERY MONTH

LAWA HAS IDENTIFIED

14 PROCESSES FOR REVIEW BY THE END OF MARCH 2019

New services announcedIn November the Commonwealth Government announced funding for new LAWA services. The Commonwealth will fund LAWA to ensure that victims of family violence are protected from direct cross-examination by the alleged perpetrator. This new service will reduce the trauma victims suffer from directly facing their perpetrator in court. The Commonwealth will also fund LAWA to provide family law property mediations through our dispute resolution service. This will allow more women to achieve fairer property settlements.

And one more thing……

2 | Legal Aid WA Quarterly Report 1 October 2018 – 31 December 2018

At the end of December 2018, LAWA was tracking $1.57 million ahead of the budget set by the Commission after adjusting for the expected receipt of both State and Commonwealth supplementary funding.

Financial PerformanceYear-to-date

December 2018

Commonwealth Funding $16,054,566

State Funding $26,360,000

Other Income $2,335,222

Total revenue $44,749,788

Total expenditure $41,938,091

Surplus1 $2,811,697

1 The operating surplus of $2,811,697 million at 31 December 2018 is due to the receipt of State funding received 1 month in advance.

² Note: These are management figures and have not been audited.

Financial Performance

3 | Legal Aid WA Quarterly Report 1 October 2018 – 31 December 2018

www.legalaid.wa.gov.au

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