IT would appear that the legal profession is objecting strongly to changes that would bring it into the real ''fiscal'' world. Other professions have had to adjust and learn to devolve and delegate. When I first qualified, there were many procedures that were only to be done by doctors or nurses. Nowadays, blood samples are taken by a phlebotomist, fixation of fractured limbs is done by technicians, various complicated and life-saving tasks are undertaken by paramedics, asthma and diabetic clinics are run - and very well - by nurses, and now some senior nurses are being taught primary diagnostic procedures. We also find classroom assistants doing some
work previously done by degree-qualified teachers.
The setting-up of proper protocols for the handling of routine procedures by ''legal assistants'' could lessen the burden placed on procurators-fiscal. If this speeds up the hearing of cases and lessens the cost of the legal services, can there really be any objection?
Dr J M Walsh,
169 Kirk Road, Wishaw.
WHAT relief we must all feel that a way of saving money and improving service has been found in the troublesome business of law and order. The news that unqualified fiscals' clerks will be dealing with one-third of the cases reported by the police must fill us with pride in our economic ingenuity. We should not allow the fact that reputations may be destroyed by even a prosecution at the low end of the scale where they are to operate to deflect us from the salvation that this brainwave will bring to a system overburdened by people of qualification, experience, and skill. I am sure we shall one day see this ground-breaking move as a flagship of service improvement and economic reform. The sooner we follow this through into other areas of public service and private enterprise, the sooner we shall resolve all their problems, too.
I look forward to a time when our hospital waiting-lists are eliminated. Plainly, this can be achieved very quickly by re-allocating the diagnostic and curative responsibilities until now resting on doctors and placing them with the hospital receptionists and filing clerks. No doubt they will operate (perhaps literally) within ''clear business rules'' like the fiscals' clerks. Not only does their training cost much less but their salaries are much less, too. After all, doctors' time is far too valuable to expend on patients. The receptionists and clerks are pretty bright and have in some cases worked in hospitals for years. They are bound to pick things up as they go along and we can have no doubt that in time our health service will be the better for it.
I would try out booking-clerks as replacement train drivers. We forever suffer delays because of insufficient qualified drivers and absenteeism. Why not get the clerks out of the ticket offices and into the cabs? Let's get the school janitors and dinner ladies on to teaching duties. Do away with pilots and let the stewards fly the planes. Abolish Corgi gas fitters and let the salesmen install the appliances. Let the cabin-boys sail the ships. The possibilities of saving money and achieving the Scottish Executive's ambition of ''best value'' are endless.
But these improvements will only be achieved if we do not allow ourselves to think that this approach is dumbing down the quality of public services and putting the lives and well-being of our people in jeopardy. We could easily be misled into thinking that tasks we have been in the habit of believing require training, qualification, and experience cannot be done by untrained amateurs. We must realise that there are no areas where improvements cannot be made by replacing the professionals. There are no specialist skills involved. There are no areas of expertise. There are no difficult judgments to be made. There are no heavy responsibilities. Anyone can do anything. And the savings will be amazing.
Gary J G Allan,
5 Cresswell Place,
Mearnskirk, Newton Mearns.
YOUR home affairs correspondent Lucy Adams's statement that traditionally all police reports are marked by legally-qualified fiscals who decide to proceed with prosecution or choose an alternative such as a fiscal fine must be regarded with a modicum of reservation. In practice, police reports are scrutinised in private by a senior police officer before his signature is appended to the document. The reporting officer has no guarantee that his report will ever reach the procurator-fiscal's office.
This seeming flaw in the reporting system was recently exposed in a Strathclyde hospital case widely reported in the media.
John Rothney Stephen,
48 Mitre Road, Glasgow.
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