Tag Archives: barriers to choice review

David Boyle writes… Choice works – so why not in legal aid?

By David Boyle | Thu 13th June 2013 - 1:24 pm

Choice is a funny thing. I spent seven months studying how it worked in practice when I was running the Barriers to Choice Review for the Cabinet Office.

Despite the rhetoric from parts of the left, I believe that people can improve public services by being able to choose between different providers.

I’m also only too aware how many people are excluded from that – by a lack of information or advice, by a lack of transport and any number of other factors.

I am also aware of the

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged legal aid | 18 Comments

Opinion: A new direction for choice

By David Boyle | Thu 24th January 2013 - 1:24 pm

“What’s a nice guy like you doing with a bunch of Tories?” one journalist asked me as I discussed the Barriers to Choice Review.

“You see, I’m a Liberal Democrat,” I explained…

The truth is that this was not a coalition problem. It was a problem about the word ‘choice’.

My task as an independent reviewer, appointed by the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, was to find out how people used the choices they have been given in schools, hospitals, social care and so on – especially disadvantaged people.

But the word ‘choice’ itself divides people, even those who might otherwise agree on pretty …