2022–23 annual report

1. Letter of Compliance

31 August 2023

The Hon Yvette D’Ath MP
Attorney-General and Minister for Justice
Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence
Leader of the House
1 William Street
Brisbane Qld 4000

Dear Attorney

I am pleased to submit for presentation to the Parliament the Annual Report 2022–23 and financial statements for Legal Aid Queensland.

I certify this annual report complies with:

• the prescribed requirements of the Financial Accountability Act 2009 and the Financial and Performance Management Standard 2019
• the detailed requirements set out in the Annual report requirements for Queensland Government agencies.

A checklist outlining the annual reporting requirements is provided at page 111 of this annual report.

Yours sincerely

The Hon Margaret McMurdo AC
Chairperson, Legal Aid Queensland Board

2. Chairperson's report

As chair of the Legal Aid Queensland Board, I am delighted to introduce our annual report for 2022–23.

This report highlights the organisation’s achievements and challenges over the past year as we continued to deliver a remarkably wide range of legal services to vulnerable and disadvantaged Queenslanders.

It has again been a privilege to work with the Legal Aid Queensland Board, Executive Management Team and staff this reporting year.

I would especially like to thank outgoing board members Joshua Creamer and Allan Welsh for their significant contributions over the years. Many of their initiatives are now embedded in Legal Aid Queensland’s everyday policies and processes, especially through the establishment of the Accommodation Committee and the First Nations Advisory Committee. They have both left a lasting legacy.

In May 2023, the board welcomed new members—experienced First Nations barrister Avelina Tarrago and procurement expert and project manager Mike Anstee—both on three-year terms.

I am honoured to have been reappointed to chair the board for another three-year term, while long-serving and respected board member Sandra Deane has been reappointed until August 2024.

The board held our regional meetings in Southport and Ipswich this year and also visited Inala. It is always a pleasure to meet with Legal Aid Queensland staff and external stakeholders and service delivery partners outside the Brisbane CBD. It is especially enlightening to learn about the innovative ways they meet challenges and make the most of opportunities. I am so proud of how LAQ professionals and staff collaborate to provide quality services throughout this large and decentralised state.

I am delighted to report that in 2022–23 Legal Aid Queensland continued to build on our reputation as a centre of excellence, sharing our considerable experience in criminal, family and civil law with the legal assistance and community service delivery sectors, as well as with the broader public. Where appropriate, the organisation continued to provide valued policy and legislative reform proposals to the state and federal governments, to commissions of inquiry, and to industry bodies.

During 2021 and 2022, I chaired the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce, formed in response to the Queensland Government’s commitment to make coercive control a criminal offence. I was pleased that LAQ made comprehensive submissions to the taskforce and that it is now working to implement relevant recommendations from the taskforce’s two Hear Her Voice reports, which also considered women and girls’ experiences of the criminal justice system.

Congratulations to Katarina Prskalo KC who has this year been appointed as Legal Aid Queensland’s Public Defender. Part of the Legal Aid Queensland team for more than two decades, Katarina in 2022 acted as a District Court judge. In December 2022, in recognition of her excellent advocacy, legal and leadership skills, she was appointed King’s Counsel. As LAQ’s current Public Defender, Katarina is exceptionally well qualified to continue the distinguished, more than century-long legacy of Queensland’s Public Defender’s Office.

I also warmly congratulate Toowoomba principal lawyer Kyna Morice and Bundaberg senior lawyer Mary Buchanan, who were appointed as magistrates during the year. Their judicial appointments reflect the high standard of work in our regional offices and help cement LAQ’s reputation as a centre of legal excellence, not just in Brisbane but throughout Queensland.

Legal Aid Queensland is committed to provide culturally capable legal services and to develop a more equitable justice system for First Nations peoples. In 2022–23 we made significant progress along this path. We established our cultural capability framework, facilitated ongoing staff training in cultural capability, and maintained best practice guidelines for providing legal services to First Nations clients in a culturally capable way.

Addressing First Nations peoples’ under-representation in the legal sector continued to be a key priority this year. Legal Aid Queensland is proud that it has the most First Nations solicitors with practising certificates in Queensland, and more than four percent of our staff identify as First Nations peoples—making progress towards our nine percent goal. Our First Nations graduate program trained two new graduate lawyers in 2022–23. Legal Aid Queensland also developed a secondment program from corporate and commercial sectors so that these First Nations lawyers can gain additional experience at our organisation.

In 2022–23, Legal Aid Queensland received significant funding increases from both state and federal governments. On behalf of the Legal Aid Queensland Board and the people of Queensland, I sincerely thank the Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, the Hon. Yvette D’Ath MP, the former Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Minister for Women and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, the Hon. Shannon Fentiman MP, and the federal Attorney-General, the Hon. Mark Dreyfus KC MP, for their on-going support. The much-needed increased funding they provided will assist the organisation to continue to best meet the legal needs of an increasingly growing number of vulnerable and financially disadvantaged Queenslanders.

Thank you also to our service delivery partners for their important work on behalf of Legal Aid Queensland, supporting our vulnerable and disadvantaged clients. We could not strive to meet the needs of vulnerable and financially disadvantaged Queenslanders without the help of these private lawyers, barristers and other professionals who continue to do our work at greatly reduced rates.

And thank you to all our Legal Aid Queensland staff for their diligence and commitment, often on the front line, providing clients with legal information, advice and representation, and duty lawyer and dispute resolution services, as well as broader community legal education.

Together, our in-house Legal Aid Queensland professionals, staff and service delivery partners have this year continued to provide an essential lifeline providing access to justice to Queenslanders in need. I look forward to continuing this work with my talented board members, the diligent Legal Aid Queensland Executive Management Team, professionals, staff and our wonderful partners during the coming year.

Margaret McMurdo AC
Chairperson, Legal Aid Queensland Board

3. Chief Executive Officer's Report

In 2022–23, Legal Aid Queensland continued to provide legal assistance to financially disadvantaged people throughout Queensland and to strive to be a leader in a fair justice system.

We worked towards achieving the objectives set out in our strategic plan while being guided by our values of social justice, respect, quality, cost effectiveness and accountability, and cognisant of the Queensland public service values—customers first, ideas into action, unleash potential, be courageous and empower people.

This year has been challenging on several fronts. The cost-of-living crisis among other pressures on the justice system have contributed to an increase in the demand for legal aid, as more Queenslanders struggle to make ends meet. The state also faces the continuing and worrying problem of domestic and family violence in our communities, and the need to address youth justice is more pressing than ever.

Legal Aid Queensland could not provide the services we do without the support of the state and federal governments. We are appreciative of both levels of government providing increased funding to the organisation this year, to help us deliver and expand our legal services. In the 2022–23 State Budget, the Queensland Government provided $98 million in additional funding over four years to help Legal Aid Queensland meet increasing demand for core legal services in criminal law, domestic and family violence and child protection, and to allow us to increase fees for private practitioners who undertake our work.

The state’s youth crime issues this past year have received a great deal of attention. For Legal Aid Queensland, a key human rights concern arising out of this is the growing numbers of children being held on remand while their legal matters are underway. We have been participating in the state government funded Fast Track Sentencing Pilot program—in Brisbane, Townsville, Southport and Cairns—which gives children appearing in court easy and prompt access to a lawyer to resolve matters more quickly.

Supporting and protecting victim-survivors of domestic and family violence is another vital priority. During the year, Legal Aid Queensland supported the continued enhancement and rollout of Queensland’s Specialist Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) Courts by expanding our duty lawyer service operating at the new specialist courts in Brisbane and Cairns. We also provided enhanced duty lawyer services at the Specialist DFV Courts at Southport, Beenleigh, Townsville, Mount Isa, and Palm Island, and at 23 other Queensland court locations. The free duty lawyer service informs, advises, refers and in some cases, represents those affected by domestic and family violence and those responding to applications for domestic violence protection orders. In Southport, the duty lawyer service also provides legal help to defendants charged with breaching domestic and family violence orders and related criminal cases.

Legal Aid Queensland actively supports changes to reduce trauma and improve access to justice for domestic and family violence victim-survivors appearing in court with their alleged perpetrators. The government has provided $18.6 million over four years and $4.7 million each year ongoing to meet demand from the protected witness scheme in criminal law cases around Queensland. The extension of protected witness status to cover domestic and family violence victim-survivors in the Magistrates Courts alleviates the trauma of vulnerable parties being cross-examined by a self-represented defendant. New legal aid funding provides for lawyers to represent defendants so that protected witnesses are cross-examined by a trained lawyer rather than the alleged perpetrator defendant.

We are also broadening support for violence-affected clients who have family law matters underway or need urgent action to protect their children. This year, we began preparing to expand the federal government funded Family Advocacy and Support Services (FASS) beyond family law courts in Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns. The service—offering wrap-around legal and social support to eligible family law clients—is now in place at all Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia registries, including Rockhampton, and at circuit locations in Maroochydore, Toowoomba, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg and Mackay. The expanded federal government funded Domestic Violence Unit in Rockhampton provides a similarly holistic service to clients impacted by domestic and family violence, in the domestic and family violence and family law jurisdictions in Rockhampton and surrounding areas.

Supporting vulnerable people experiencing sexual harassment and workplace bullying is another area of growth for Legal Aid Queensland. Following strengthened federal anti-discrimination and human rights laws in this area (introduced through the Respect at Work Act 2022), we have set up a multidisciplinary team to help people experiencing workplace bullying and sexual harassment. The lawyers collaborate with a social worker to provide individual crisis intervention, with legal and social support for clients’ specific needs.

In 2022–23, Legal Aid Queensland played a role assisting people affected by the February 2022 rain events and floods. We provided legal advice, minor assistance and representation on legal issues including insurance, financial hardship, banking and finance, and about the assistance provided by the Queensland Reconstruction Authority. We attended community forums to provide advice, worked with government disaster responders and others to help Queenslanders, and advocated to address systemic issues with industry responses to the disaster and recovery process.

Seventy-five to 80 percent of our legal representation work is undertaken by private lawyers on our behalf, and it is important that these professionals are remunerated appropriately. A Queensland Government funding increase this year allowed us to raise the fees paid to preferred suppliers, barristers and specialist report writers, making this work more financially viable for those in private practice. With a further $1.295 million funding provided in 2023–24, we will continue to increase fees for state legal work next year.

In terms of future initiatives, youth justice is a high priority, with Legal Aid Queensland receiving extra Queensland Government funding for the youth justice fast-track sentencing pilot and the Youth Legal Advice Hotline, to support the High-Risk Youth Court in Townsville, and additional legal support for children.

Further funding announced in the 2023–24 budget includes additional support for the Counselling Notes Protect service, which helps protect the counselling records of victims of sexual assault or alleged sexual assault from being used in some courts. Additional funding has been announced for growth in demand for Legal Aid Queensland’s criminal law services, particularly for escalating workloads in the District Court of Queensland. The Queensland Government has also provided funding over two years to pilot a separate women’s list in the Magistrates Court’s Court Link program to identify and address the underlying needs of women charged with criminal offences.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, the Hon. Yvette D’Ath MP, the former Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Minister for Women and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, the Hon. Shannon Fentiman MP, and the federal Attorney-General, the Hon. Mark Dreyfus KC MP for their continued support.

At the core of our organisation are our dedicated and highly skilled staff. We strive to be a great place to work where our people are respected, valued, safe and supported. Our workforce embraces diversity, flexibility, learning and continuous improvement to deliver quality legal services. We continue to take part in the whole-of-government Working for Queensland Employee Opinion Survey, and I am pleased that our results in 2022 were very positive. Ninety-one percent of staff completed the survey, with 75 percent of respondents reporting high levels of engagement, and 80 percent of staff indicating they engage in flexible work. The survey feedback will help the organisation to build on our strengths and prioritise areas where we can improve.

I would also like to thank the Legal Aid Queensland Board and Executive Management Team for their continued support this year. I sincerely thank Legal Aid Queensland staff, our service delivery partners and stakeholders across the courts, government and legal assistance and community sectors. Your commitment to our clients—from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people with disability, people living in rural, regional and remote areas of Queensland, and women experiencing domestic and family violence—is to be commended. I look forward to working with you all over the next 12 months.

Nicky Davies
Chief executive officer

4. Corporate Governance

Corporate governance is the system by which our organisation is managed, directed and held accountable.

Sound corporate governance means:

• achieving our strategic objectives
• being accountable for our decisions and actions
• fulfilling legal requirements
• complying with privacy obligations
• ensuring the Legal Aid Queensland Act’s requirements and philosophy are met
• managing risks
• monitoring, reporting on and evaluating our performance
• meeting government and community expectations.

Our corporate governance structure provides leadership in achieving our strategic and operational objectives (see Figure 1 for more information).

 

 

Legal Aid Queensland Board

The Legal Aid Queensland Board (the board) is responsible for governing Legal Aid Queensland and ensuring the organisation achieves its objectives. The board is our organisation’s governing body and is responsible to the Attorney-General.

The board decides the organisation’s priorities and strategies, leads policy direction and ensures sound and prudent financial management.

The board usually has five members. Each member has specific knowledge or experience that helps in the organisation’s management. The areas of expertise include public administration, financial management, and law and legal services provision. The board is headed by a chairperson, who is appointed by the Governor in Council. Board members are appointed by the Governor in Council usually for three-year terms (see Table 1 for more information). The chief executive officer (CEO), senior directors and chief finance officer (CFO) are invited to attend all board meetings. Executive Management Team directors also attend as needed to present papers and discuss issues with the board.

Board members

Margaret McMurdo AC

Board chairperson since May 2017

Margaret McMurdo was appointed President, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court of Queensland from 1998 until 2017 and was Acting Chief Justice of Queensland in 2015.

Margaret graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Queensland in 1976. She began her legal career as a student volunteer in 1974 with the newly formed Aboriginal Legal Service.

In 1976, she became the first female paralegal in the Public Defender’s Office. She was admitted as a barrister in December 1976 and was an Assistant Public Defender from 1977 to 1989.

She practised at the Bar from 1989 until 1991 when she was appointed to the District Court of Queensland. In 1993, she also held a commission as a Childrens Court judge.

Margaret was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2007 for services to the law and judicial administration, particularly in legal education and women’s issues. She has been awarded a number of honorary doctorates and is a founding Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and a member of the American Law Institute. She is patron of Caxton Legal Service and LawRight’s Civil Justice Fund. In 2017, Margaret was appointed chair of the Board of Governors of Queensland Community Foundation, the state’s largest public perpetual charitable trust.

Margaret chaired the Victorian Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants from 2018 to 2020. From March 2021 until June 2022, Margaret was chair of the Queensland’s Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce.

Sandra Deane

Board member since September 2014

Sandra Deane is an experienced board member and tribunal member with extensive private and public sector experience. She brings experience from senior positions (including as CEO) in the corporate (publicly listed, large private and government-owned corporations) and professional (legal) sectors. Sandra was admitted as a solicitor in 1988 and has more than 25 years’ experience in legal practice in corporate and private practice and tribunal roles. She also has more than 15 years’ experience in the energy sector. She brings professional expertise in contract management and negotiation, dispute resolution and compliance. She is currently an external Audit and Compliance Committee Member of the Local Government Association of Queensland Limited and is a part-time member of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Spencer Browne

Board member since September 2021

Cairns-based lawyer Spencer Browne has a wealth of experience in private practice and the not-for-profit sector.

Spencer graduated from James Cook University in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Laws and obtained his Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Australian National University in 2010. He was an associate to two District Court judges, before practising in planning and environmental law and commercial litigation. He is the North Queensland Law Association’s longest-serving president and currently sits as the organisation’s treasurer.

Spencer has a keen interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs and has spent the last 10 years doing legislative compliance work in the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation sector. He has organised a major youth-based event in north Queensland for the past 10 years, focusing on reducing youth crime and recidivism.

Avelina Tarrago

Board member since May 2023

Avelina Tarrago was admitted as a legal practitioner in the Supreme Court of Queensland in 2009 before being called to the bar in 2017. She has a general practice at North Quarter Lane Chambers with a focus on inquests and Commissions of Inquiry, regulatory and administrative law. Avelina has held senior roles in a range of organisations including senior legal officer for the Office of the Health Ombudsman Queensland and counsel assisting in the Coroners Court of Queensland. She has been a federal prosecutor with the Federal government Director of Public Prosecutions and has also worked for the Australian Securities and Investment Commission. She also sits as a legal member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal. Avelina was the president of the Indigenous Lawyers Association of Queensland from 2018–22, and in 2014, she was selected as an Indigenous Fellow by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights to undertake a two-month fellowship in Geneva.

Mike Anstee

Board member since May 2023

Mike Anstee is an experienced procurement and project manager, with more than 25 years’ experience in leadership roles in the construction industry and Queensland public service. A qualified architect, Mike has held senior positions in the Department of Public Works, including Director, Health, Law and Order Portfolio, where he oversaw the design and construction of major projects including correctional facilities at Gatton, Townsville, Lotus Glen and Brisbane, and the development of the new Brisbane higher courts complex and Ipswich courthouse. He was a member of steering committees directing the development of major capital works projects in Queensland, including the Gold Coast University Hospital, Sunshine Coast University Hospital and Royal Children’s Hospital.

Table 1. Legal Aid Queensland Board information 2021-22

Accommodation Committee

The Accommodation Committee is a sub-committee of the Legal Aid Queensland Board and acts in an advisory capacity to the board. The committee assesses the long-term accommodation needs and options for our offices around the state.

The committee’s primary functions include:

• assessing and making recommendations surrounding the continued ownership of 44 Herschel Street Brisbane and/or future refurbishments
• assessing sale, purchase and/or leasing options for our central business district occupancy needs
• engaging with relevant stakeholders about accommodation options available to Legal Aid Queensland
• providing advice and assessing the valuation impacts potential to Legal Aid Queensland moving forward
• considering significant issues relating to regional office accommodation (eg major refurbishments or relocations).

The committee comprises:

• Legal Aid Queensland Board member Allan Welsh (chairperson) (July 2022 to May 2023)
• Legal Aid Queensland Board chair Margaret McMurdo AC (chairperson) (May 2023 to June 2023)
• Legal Aid Queensland Board member Mike Anstee (May 2023 to June 2023).

The meeting is also attended by:

• CEO Nicky Davies
• Business Support senior director Ian Warren
• Legal Practice senior director Peter Delibaltas
• Acting CFO Grant Tanham-Kelly
• Facilities and procurement manager Jeffrey Patterson
• other stakeholders and staff members to provide specialist advice as needed.

Allan Welsh received remuneration for his attendance and representation in addition to the remuneration he received for attending board meetings.

Legal Aid Queensland Board

Act or instrument	Legal Aid Queensland Act 1997
Functions	Responsible for governing Legal Aid Queensland and ensuring the organisation achieves its objectives. The board decides the organisation’s priorities and strategies, leads policy direction and ensures sound and prudent financial management.
Achievements	Key achievements included: approving the operating statements and capital expenditure program/operational plan for 2022–23 approving the draft strategic plan 2023–27 approving the First Nations Strategic Plan 2023–25 approving the First Nations Action Plan 2023–24 approving the Financial Strategy 2022–26 approving the revised Enterprise Risk Management Framework approving the draft Legal Aid Queensland Modern Slavery Statement 2021–22 approving the internal audit plan and strategy monitoring work, health and safety incidents and implementation of the workforce plan, ICT strategic plan and financial strategy.
Financial reporting	Not exempted from Audit by the Auditor-General and transactions of the entity are accounted for in the financial statements.

Remuneration

Position	Name	Meetings/sessions attendance	Approved annual fee $	Approved sub-committee fees if applicable $	Actual fees received $
Board Chairperson	Margaret McMurdo AC	13 (10 board meetings, 1 special board meeting, 1 accommodation committee meeting and 1 sub-committee meeting)	8910	1150	8910
Board member, Audit, Risk & Compliance Committee chairman	Sandra Deane	16 (11 board meetings, 1 special board meeting and 4 audit risk and compliance committee meetings)	6926	2530	9456
Board member, Accommodation Committee chairman	Allan Welsh	13 (8 board meetings, 1 special board meeting and 4 accommodation committee meetings)	6926	2530	7880
Board member, First Nations Committee chairman	Joshua Creamer	10 (6 board meetings, 1 special board meeting and 3 sub-committee meetings)	6926	2530	7880
Board member, Audit, Risk & Compliance Committee member	Spencer Browne	19 (11 board meetings, 1 special board meeting, 4 audit risk and compliance committee meetings and 3 sub-committee meetings)	7634	2184	9818
No. scheduled meetings/sessions	26 (12 board meetings, including 1 special board meeting and 13 sub-committee meetings)
Total out of pocket expenses	$4208.12

Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee

The Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee is a subcommittee of the Legal Aid Queensland Board and acts in a review and advisory capacity to the board. The committee provides independent assurance and assistance to the board on our financial administration and reporting, audit control and independence, legal compliance, internal controls, and risk oversight and management.

The committee’s key achievements in 2022–23 included:

• continuing to review the charter annually to ensure ongoing effectiveness of the committee’s authority, objectives and responsibilities
• continuing to advise on better practice governance trends
• reviewing the 2021–22 end of financial year statements before signing by the board chairperson and CFO
• reviewing the external auditor’s recommendations from the 2021–22– audit and 2022–23 interim audit
• reviewing the organisation’s strategic risks register and overseeing the register’s maintenance
• reviewing the compliance assurance tools and endorsing the ongoing bi-annual compliance reporting program.

The committee comprises:

• Legal Aid Queensland Board member Sandra Deane (chairperson)
• Legal Aid Queensland Board member Spencer Browne
• a Queensland Treasury representative
• a Department of Justice and Attorney-General Financial Services representative
• Jeanette Shanahan, external committee member, independent financial management, regulatory compliance and audit practices specialist.

Sandra Deane and Spencer Browne received remuneration for their attendance and representation in addition to the remuneration they received for attending board meetings. Queensland Treasury and the Department of Justice and Attorney-General representatives are public servants and did not receive remuneration for attending meetings. External committee member Jeanette Shanahan received $2210 (including superannuation) remuneration in 2022–23.

The meeting is also attended by:

• CEO Nicky Davies
• Business Support senior director Ian Warren
• Acting CFO Grant Tanham-Kelly
• Chief governance officer (CGO) Stephen Shirvington
• other stakeholders and staff members to provide specialist advice as needed.

First Nations Advisory Committee

The First Nations Advisory Committee is a sub-committee of the Legal Aid Queensland Board and acts in an advisory capacity to the board. The committee leads the ongoing development of Legal Aid Queensland’s cultural capability in providing best practice legal services to First Nations people.

The committee’s responsibilities include:

• monitoring the First Nations Strategic Plan 2021–23
• reporting to the board about the plan’s implementation
• providing advice to the board about issues relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander strategies and policies.

The committee comprises:

• Legal Aid Queensland Board member Joshua Creamer (chairperson July 2022 to May 2023)
• Legal Aid Queensland Board chair Margaret McMurdo AC (chairperson) (May 2023 to June 2023)
• Legal Aid Queensland Board member Avelina Tarrago (May 2023 to June 2023)
• representatives from two external organisations that provide general help to First Nations people
• an Indigenous Lawyers Association of Queensland representative
• two First Nations employee representatives—one lawyer and one administrative officer.

Other stakeholders and staff members attend meetings to provide specialist advice on matters as needed.

Joshua Creamer is a board member appointed to the committee and received remuneration for his attendance and representation in addition to the remuneration he received for attending board meetings. External committee member Wyatt Cook-Revell received $1978 (including superannuation) remuneration in 2022–23. Other external committee members receive remuneration for their attendance and representation. Legal Aid Queensland employee representatives do not receive remuneration.

Executive Management Team

Under the Legal Aid Queensland Act 1997, the CEO has responsibility, under the board, for managing Legal Aid Queensland’s day-to-day administration, providing legal services to legally assisted people, and arranging and supervising the legal services provided by Legal Aid Queensland lawyers.

The CEO is supported in this role by the Executive Management Team. The team’s functions are:

• implementing the Legal Aid Queensland strategic plan, including through developing and implementing the annual operational plan
• leading service delivery performance to meet government and organisational performance indicators
• leading financial performance to achieve financial sustainability
• overseeing strategic organisational projects to ensure “on time, on budget” delivery
• identifying, monitoring and ensuring effective responses to risk
• ensuring compliance with organisational governance requirements and ethical standards
• ensuring Legal Aid Queensland systems and practices are effective
• supporting communication across the organisation
• considering and making decisions about other significant issues affecting Legal Aid Queensland.

The team meets monthly and comprises:

• CEO Nicky Davies (chairperson)
• Legal Practice senior director Peter Delibaltas
• Family Law and Civil Justice Services director Toni Bell
• Criminal Law Services director Kerry Bichel
• Public Defender Katarina Prskalo
• Acting Grants director Amber Buckland
• Business Support senior director Ian Warren
• Information and Advice Services director Katrina Smith
• Acting CFO Grant Tanham-Kelly
• Communication and Community Legal Education manager Miranda Greer.

The meeting is also attended by:

• CGO Stephen Shirvington
• Acting chief people officer (CPO) Lauren Cowell
• First Nations strategic policy and planning manager Margaret Hornagold.

Finance Committee

The Finance Committee monitors and reviews our financial, budget and performance processes.

The committee’s responsibilities include:

• overseeing the annual budget preparation and recommending its endorsement by the CEO and approval by the board
• ensuring our budget is framed to maximise achieving objectives outlined in our strategic plan and government priorities
• ensuring the budget is effectively managed so we achieve budget targets and comply with government requirements
• monitoring and reporting on our financial performance and position, identifying key financial performance drivers and establishing measures for determining success
• monitoring compliance with external financial reporting requirements.

The committee comprises:

• Acting CFO Grant Tanham-Kelly (chairperson)
• CEO Nicky Davies
• Legal Practice senior director Peter Delibaltas
• Business Support senior director Ian Warren
• Acting Grants director Amber Buckland.

The meeting is also attended by:

• Grants systems and process development director Louise Martin
• Information and Advice Services director Katrina Smith
• Acting Grants assistant director Kelly Camden
• Acting CPO Lauren Cowell
• Financial Services and Business Analysis manager Melissa Gill.

Information Communication and Technology Steering Committee

The Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Steering Committee ensures information technology (IT), and communication operations, investments and initiatives are aligned with Legal Aid Queensland’s strategic objective of building on our business capability, sustainability and workplace culture.

The committee’s responsibilities include:

• providing corporate governance for planning, approving and prioritising significant ICT investments and initiatives
• ensuring whole-of-organisation coordination and oversight of ICT and its deployment within the organisation
• ensuring ICT investments and initiative proposals:
  • are and remain consistent with the organisation’s strategic plan, priorities, budget strategy and resourcing capability
  • are responsive to identified client and staff needs
  • fully consider people management, change management and communication priorities
• ensuring whole-of-organisation engagement with the organisation’s ICT priorities and challenges
• monitoring IT service delivery performance against approved targets and initiating corrective action where needed.

The committee comprises:

• CEO Nicky Davies (chairperson)
• Legal Practice senior director Peter Delibaltas
• Business Support senior director Ian Warren
• Acting Grants director Amber Buckland
• Information and Advice Services director Katrina Smith
• Chief information officer Paul Ninnes
• Records and Information manager Michael Johnston
• a Department of Justice and Attorney-General representative.

The meeting is also attended by:

• Acting CFO Grant Tanham-Kelly
• Acting CPO Lauren Cowell
• Communication and Community Legal Education manager Miranda Greer
• Technical operations manager Darren Erlich
• Business engagement manager Rae Fletcher
• Facilities and procurement manager Jeffrey Patterson
• CGO Stephen Shirvington.

People, Culture and Capability Committee

The People, Culture and Capability (PCC) Committee helps determine Legal Aid Queensland’s approach to support the strategic objective of building on our business capability, sustainability and workforce culture. The committee considers organisational issues relating to resourcing, performance, structure, culture and skills development, and aims to meet organisational needs while engaging employees.

The committee’s responsibilities include:

• guiding our workforce strategy development, monitoring and evaluation
• ensuring resource levels, mix and allocation adequately support the organisation’s current and future needs
• maintaining an awareness of PCC trends, assessing their applicability for Legal Aid Queensland and implementing initiatives for continuous improvement
• approving new and updated PCC policies and procedures in line with the strategic framework
• noting operational PCC metrics and key performance indicators
• encouraging a culture of performance through active people management and development
• ensuring the organisation complies with relevant legislation and directives.

The committee comprises:

• CEO Nicky Davies (chairperson)
• Legal Practice senior director Peter Delibaltas
• Business Support senior director Ian Warren
• Criminal Law Services director Kerry Bichel
• Acting Grants director Amber Buckland
• Information and Advice Services director Katrina Smith
• Family Law and Civil Justice Services director Toni Bell
• Public Defender Katarina Prskalo
• Acting CPO Lauren Cowell
• First Nations strategic policy and planning manager Margaret Hornagold.

Work, Health and Safety Committee

The Work, Health and Safety Committee provides a consultative forum (with particular reference to the requirements of the Work, Health and Safety Act 2011) that provides direction on managing risk arising from health and safety matters as well as recommends proactive initiatives to promote health and safety in Legal Aid Queensland.

The committee’s responsibilities include:

• enabling consultation and cooperation between employer and employees on health and safety matters
• helping to develop, monitor and review health and safety policies and procedures
• consulting on proposals for, or changes to, the workplace, policies, work practices or procedures, which may impact the health and safety of employees
• identifying opportunities for training and educating employees on health and safety policies, procedures and initiatives
• promoting health, safety and wellbeing across Legal Aid Queensland through staff consultation processes
• monitoring and advising on the organisation’s health and safety performance
• reviewing and advising on complex workplace incidents and hazards that have been referred to the committee for consultation on risk mitigation strategies
• helping to identify workplace hazards and developing risk mitigation controls for those hazards.

The committee comprises:

• Principal consultant (Work Health and Safety) Dallas Miller (chairperson)
• Business Support senior director Ian Warren (management representative)
• Senior family lawyer Darren Lewis (southern regional offices representative)
• Criminal lawyer Craig Ryan (northern regional offices representative)
• Lawyer Jason Czinki (Basement/Ground – 44 Herschel St Brisbane)
• Criminal Law Services coordinator Patrick O’Brien (Level 3/4 – 44 Herschel St Brisbane)
• Litigation support officer Christopher Pell (420 George St Brisbane)
• Contracts maintenance and procurement officer Kaitlyn Stanton
• Senior facilities and procurement officer Delina Smail
• Protective Services representative
• Senior consultant (payroll and recruitment) Emma Rava (Brisbane representative).

External scrutiny

We are subject to all of the external accountability mechanisms that apply to a statutory body in Queensland, including regular budget and performance updates with Queensland Treasury and the Department of Justice and Attorney-General.

Accountability mechanisms that complement the internal corporate governance framework include:

• external audit and certification
• judicial review of administrative decisions
• the Queensland Ombudsman
• the Crime and Corruption Commission
• Parliamentary Estimates Committee Hearings
• the Legal Affairs and Safety Committee
• the Legal Services Commission
• public performance reporting, for example, through this annual report and the annual Service Delivery Statement.

Human Rights Act

The Human Rights Act 2019’s main objects are to:

• protect and promote human rights
• help build a culture in the Queensland public sector that respects and promotes human rights
• help promote a dialogue about the nature, meaning and scope of human rights.

Legal Aid Queensland is committed to human rights principles. To fulfil this commitment, and further the objects of and ensure compliance with the Act, we have adopted the following measures:

• implementing a Human Rights Policy
• reviewing policies for compliance, including our case management and client service standards
• updating internal procedures to improve alignment with the Act’s principles and requirements
• implementing staff awareness measures and compulsory staff training.

Our complaints systems and processes ensure we can capture and effectively address any human rights complaints received. We received 10 human rights complaints in 2022–23.

5. Organisation structure

Download a PDF of the organisation structure

6. Report card

Queensland Government community objective

• Backing our frontline services

Our services

• Community legal education and information—through our website, publications, community legal education activities, statewide contact centre and customer service counters
• Legal advice and task assistance—over the phone, by video-link or face-to-face
• Duty lawyer services—in criminal, family, domestic and family violence, child protection, anti-discrimination, employment and administrative law
• Lawyer assisted dispute resolution—for families facing separation, and for consumers and farmers
• Representation in courts and tribunals—including criminal law, family law, child protection, domestic violence, mental health and some civil law matters.

Performance indicators

• Meet National Legal Assistance (NLAP) performance indicators ($)
• Meet Queensland Government service delivery statement measures (% and average cost)
• Results of quality and compliance audits
• Mean satisfaction score >7 in client satisfaction survey
• Deliver internal and external training opportunities to staff and other service providers
• Achieve First Nations Strategic Plan objectives
• Improve services to rural and regional communities
• Participate in legal assistance forums
• Contribute to government policy development
• Implement service delivery initiatives in the:
  • Financial Strategy
  • Workforce Strategy
  • ICT Strategic Plan
  • First Nations Operational Plan

Outcomes

• Achieved Queensland Government targets (see Table 4 on page 23).
• Conducted service delivery audits (see page 39).
• Delivered training to staff and our legal service delivery partners (see page 49).
• Ensured clients from key disadvantaged groups were able to access our services (see Table 6 on page 43).
• Provided 33 policy/law reform responses.
• 75 percent of Employee Opinion Survey respondents reported high levels of engagement with Legal Aid Queensland.
• Financial position remains healthy (see page 18).
• Implemented Workforce Strategy initiatives (see page 49).
• Implemented ICT Strategic Plan initiatives (see page 54).
• Completed business support projects.

Priorities for the future

• Continue to provide quality, cost effective legal services statewide.
• Improve service delivery to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
• Continue to pursue our goal of Legal Aid Queensland being a ‘centre of excellence’.
• Continue to deliver training opportunities to staff and external service providers.
• Replace our key business systems LAQ Office and Grants Online.
• Collaborate with and enhance support for preferred supplier law firms.
• Roll out expanded Family Advocacy and Support Services.
• Expand services delivered by our Domestic Violence Unit in Rockhampton.
• Enhance legal service delivery for people with mental health conditions.
• Continue to deliver legal services for people:
  • affected by sexual harassment in the workplace
  • appealing decisions from the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
• Enhance and expand services to specialist domestic and family violence courts.
• Increase fees paid to preferred supplier law firms and other specialists like report writers to do legal aid work.

7. Financial overview

	Budget $'000	Actual $'000
Grants and other contributions	186 591	203 888
User charges	1751	1793
Interest	525	3741
Other revenue	53	80
Total income	188 920	209 502
Gains on disposal/revaluation of assets	-	71
Total income from continuing operations	188 920	209 573
Employee expenses	82 427	77 202
Supplies and services	12 994	17 312
Outsourced service delivery	89 030	86 537
Grants to legal centres	-	54
Depreciation and amortisation	3939	3966
Other	530	2491
Total expenses	188 920	187 562
Operating result from continuing operations	-	22 011
Total comprehensive income	-	22 011

Table 2. Published 2022–23 budget versus actual performance

The 2022–23 operating surplus of $22.011 million, or 10.5 percent of total income, has been substantially influenced by the receipt of additional funding of $17.297 million for various services later in 2022–23. Due to the timing and later receipt of these funding streams, this has contributed towards underspends in employee expenditure of $5.225 million and outsourced service delivery of $2.493 million. While these underspends emerged in 2022–23, this is essentially a timing matter as the organisation is expected to spend against the additional funding streams into the next financial year. Legal Aid Queensland also received additional interest revenue of $3.216 million due to higher yields than forecasted which partially subsidised additional supplies and services, which were $4.318 million greater than budget in 2022–23 due to additional operational and IT costs.

Furthermore, the operating surplus was influenced by a revaluation decrease (non-cash) of $1.864 million associated with our building at 44 Herschel Street, Brisbane as assessed at 30 June 2023.

Our financial position remains healthy and reflects the board and management’s commitment to sound financial management principles to ensure the long-term sustainability of core services.

Our continued focus on managing our finances has maintained our balance sheet’s strength and stability while allowing the organisation to continue to deliver frontline services in a timely and effective way. This sound financial position allows us to invest in our assets and operational infrastructure, which ultimately helps us deliver services more efficiently to our clients. We will continue to minimise costs and risks in relation to liabilities and contingent liabilities through our ongoing focus on sound governance practices in our financial management.

The organisation collectively has a strong focus on financial management and this allows for a greater ability to plan and deliver against objectives while meeting our core responsibility to provide cost effective services to financially disadvantaged Queenslanders.

Income

Federal and state government grants are our main income source, with relatively little income derived from service charges or clients’ contributions towards their legal costs (see Figure 4 for more information).

Another part of our overall income management focuses on interest income earned on cash investments. This portion of income is moderate in nature but important as it helps deliver core services and provide operational support functions.

Expenses

Our major expenditure categories cover salary and wages for our staff along with paying our statewide network of private law firms to carry out legal aid work on our behalf (see Figure 6 for more information). The expenditure paid to private law firms is consistent with our mixed service delivery model, which allocates about 75 to 80 percent of legally-aided representation matters to private lawyers. The remaining costs support the in-house legal practice and infrastructure for all service delivery (see Figure 5 for more information). Our continued focus on expenditure management has contributed significantly to the organisational delivery.

Assets

The most valuable assets we have are cash and cash equivalents (of $100.3 million), and our land and building in Brisbane (currently valued at $28 million). Other assets we own include unique computer-based business systems, car fleet and money owed to us by clients.

Liabilities

Our largest liability is money we have to put aside to pay private lawyers for work assigned to them but not yet completed. Sometimes these cases can take several years to complete so money needs to be kept aside from the outset of the matter. This is shown as a provision in the accounts. In addition to this, our other main liabilities include known future payments to suppliers and providing payments associated with annual leave entitlements for our staff.

Equity

Equity is made up of two components—first the accumulated surplus (also known as retained earnings), which essentially is money in the bank and available to use for business needs, and secondly the asset revaluation reserve. The accumulated surplus balance as at 30 June 2023 was $56.3 million, which represents about 70 percent of our total equity. The second component of our equity is the asset revaluation surplus and this represents the increase, over time, in the value of the land and buildings we own in Brisbane where our head office is located. The 30 June 2023 balance of the asset revaluation reserve was $22.8 million.

Cash

We have maintained and managed healthy cash levels over the past number of years to ensure we can pay our employees, ensure payment to our network of private lawyers for matters they finalise, and to allow us to replace equipment and other assets along with upgrading our facilities when and where required. We invest this cash in low-risk funds managed by the Queensland Government’s central financing authority. This investment strategy provides us with some income from interest earned but also protects us from market fluctuations.

8. About us

Our role, purpose, vision and values

Our role

To provide legal assistance to financially disadvantaged people throughout Queensland as a valued part of the legal and justice system.

Our purpose

To maintain the rule of law, protect legal rights, contribute to the fairness and efficiency of the justice system, and reduce the social impacts of legal problems.

Our vision

To be a leader in a fair justice system where people can understand and protect their legal and human rights.

Our values

Social justice

We seek to protect people’s legal and human rights, promote dignity and fair treatment and help those at risk of social exclusion.

Respect

We respect the people we assist, those with whom we work and their safety, and the rule of law, our professional obligations and the administration of justice.

Quality

We strive to improve the quality of our work and the outcomes for our clients.

Cost effectiveness

We deliver innovative, sustainable, quality and cost effective services.

Accountability

We are accountable to our clients, courts, the legal profession, the community and those who fund us.

Who we are and what we do

Legal Aid Queensland provides legal help to financially disadvantaged Queenslanders. We are an independent statutory authority that operates under the Legal Aid Queensland Act 1997.

We receive state government funding to provide legal services for state law matters, and federal government funding to provide the legal services designated in the National Legal Assistance Partnership and other federal funding agreements.

Our services include community legal education (CLE) and information, legal advice and task assistance, duty lawyer services, lawyer assisted dispute resolution, and representation in courts and tribunals. Our services are provided across a range of areas of law including crime, family, child protection, child support, domestic and family violence, social security, consumer protection, employment and anti-discrimination.

Our work contributes to the Queensland Government’s objective: Backing our frontline services. We deliver vital legal services to financially disadvantaged people who cannot afford to engage a lawyer. Our programs help to break the cycle of disadvantage for Queenslanders.

Our head office is in Brisbane. To meet the needs of Queenslanders living in rural and regional areas, we implement a range of strategies, including a statewide client contact centre and offering our services from 13 regional offices: Southport, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Woodridge, Inala, Caboolture, Maroochydore, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Mount Isa, Townsville and Cairns. Our regional office staff work with a network of community access points that act as information outposts and referral points in communities. We also participate in the Queensland Legal Assistance Forum and Regional Legal Assistance Forums.

We provide free CLE, legal information and referral, legal advice and legal task services, and duty lawyer services.

We provide duty lawyer, representation and dispute resolution services through a mixed service delivery model involving our in-house legal practice and preferred supplier law firms around the state to maximise legal services available to disadvantaged Queenslanders. Staff assess individual legal aid applications against the Legal Aid Queensland funding guidelines and by applying means and merits tests and manage the funding arrangements for cases where aid is approved.

We also respond to requests from the state and federal governments for submissions on legislative reforms and other matters.

9. Our performance

Overview of services

The Australian Government and the states and territories entered into a National Legal Assistance Partnership Agreement (NLAP) in July 2020. This agreement expires in June 2025. The NLAP governs the manner in which federal legal aid services funding to the states and territories is to be used, as well as the broader goals and objectives of legal assistance services.

The NLAP requires national performance indicators to be reported.

The NLAP national performance indicators are:

• legal representation services
• legal assistance services
• information and referral services
• community legal education
• facilitated resolution processes
• stakeholder engagement.

Services
Community legal education	7910
Discrete assistance
Information and referral	220 744
Legal advice and legal task services	39 387
Facilitated resolution processes
Family dispute resolution conference	1925
Civil dispute resolution	7
Duty lawyer services
Criminal law duty lawyer	89 397
Family law duty lawyer	1199
Domestic and family violence duty lawyer	31 346
Child protection duty lawyer	843
Administrative Appeals Tribunal duty lawyer	477
Representation services
Applications received	43 491
Applications approved	32 979
Applications refused	10 512

Table 3. Overview of Legal Aid Queensland services 2022–23

Queensland Government service delivery statement measures

Service standards	Notes	2022-23 target	2022-23 actual
Effectiveness measures
Percentage of administrative decisions referred to external review that are overturned	1	6.0%	4.8%
Percentage of accounts processed by Grants division within 14 day period	2	90.00%	97.4%
Efficiency measures
Average cost per client for crime duty lawyer service	3	$66.00	$55.66
Average cost for calls received through the contact centre	4	$5.75	$5.43

Table 4. Queensland Government service standards 2022–23

Notes:

1. This measure demonstrates the effectiveness of the decision-making process for approval of grants of aid to clients. The variance between the 2022–23 target and the 2022–23 actual result is due to less administrative decisions being overturned than expected. This favourable result for 2022–23 is the outcome of continued decision-making training for staff and the ongoing focus to improve administrative processes by the Grants Division.
2. This measure represents the importance to local suppliers of receiving accurate payments on a timely basis for services provided. Legal Aid Queensland relies on the work performed by private sector preferred supplier firms to deliver legal services. Accounts processed by the Grants division are predominantly for legal representation and it demonstrates the effectiveness of the Grants division to review and process all accounts within a 14-day period. Adherence to the 14-day payment terms is a contractual obligation and paying accounts on time greatly provides for the continuity and support for legal aid services to financially disadvantaged Queenslanders. The variance between the 2022–23 target and the 2022–23 actual is a result of a higher effective processing rate for accounts processing. The favourable 2022–23 actual is a result of the continued focus by Legal Aid Queensland to pay accounts effectively, accurately and on a timely basis.
3. This measure reflects the unique criminal law duty lawyer service and the efficiency of this service as it calculates the average time spent with a client and converts this into a dollar figure based on the hourly rate. The 2022–23 target of $66 reflects the cost of an average criminal law duty lawyer session (ie 30 minutes average session at the rate of $132 per hour paid to preferred supplier firms) as provided by preferred supplier firms. The criminal law duty lawyer service is provided by both in-house lawyers and lawyers from Legal Aid Queensland’s panel of private sector preferred supplier firms. The variance between the 2022–23 target and the 2022–23 actual reflects an overall lower average cost to serve clients in the delivery of crime duty lawyer services. The crime duty lawyer service is provided by lawyers from Legal Aid Queensland’s inhouse criminal law practice and lawyers engaged through the preferred supplier network. The lower result in the 2022–23 actual has been achieved through the continued and efficient use of this mixed service delivery model.
4. This measure demonstrates the efficiency of the contact centre services, as it calculates the average time spent on a call through the contact centre and converts this into a dollar figure based on the hourly salary rate of contact centre staff excluding overheads. The variance between the 2022–23 target and the 2022–23 actual is driven by lower average call times than expected.

10. Objective 1. Provide quality and cost effective legal services to our clients

Community legal education

CLE is an integral service offered by Legal Aid Queensland. Our CLE activities are coordinated through a strategy that responds to priority client groups and legal problems and aims to:

• improve community understanding of the law
• reduce litigation and costs to the justice system
• help community members to understand their legal rights and responsibilities and how to access legal help if they need it
• help key stakeholders to understand our services and how to access them.

Our CLE Strategy’s focus on prevention, early intervention and collaborative service planning aligns with the NLAP’s priorities and is delivered through:

• CLE activities and engagement with priority groups including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities
• legal information sessions and webinars for community members and community, health and education workers
• collaborative projects that focus on increasing awareness of the law and our services with priority community groups
• connecting with existing networks and establishing new networks through strong relationships
• participation in community events across Queensland such as Homeless Connect and NAIDOC Week events
• web-based legal information and digital resources
• online and printed materials including factsheets and legal information guides.

During the year, we:

• worked with First Nations service providers and networks to improve access to our general and specialist services, like consumer protection and child protection, and to create CLE opportunities through relationship building
• engaged with legal assistance sector and First Nations service provider networks to facilitate 14 consultation workshops across Queensland as part of the Blurred Borders Queensland project; Blurred Borders is a suite of legal communication tools developed by Legal Aid Western Australia and the Northern Territory Legal Aid Commission that use visual art, plain language and storytelling to enhance communication and support effective legal dialogue between frontline service providers and their First Nations clients; the Blurred Borders Queensland project is adapting these existing resources for the Queensland context
• participated in community engagement meetings with interagency networks, individual services and service delivery hubs and co-located services in regional areas to provide information about our services and delivering CLE
• collaborated with Community Legal Centres Queensland to coordinate a ‘Facilitative approach to CLE’ professional development workshop for CLE Legal Assistance Forum members— a specialist forum of the Queensland Legal Assistance Forum (QLAF); the workshop was funded by a CLE Collaboration Fund grant
• reviewed and updated our legal information publications including our multilingual Need legal help? brochure and poster
• contributed to a National Legal Aid project to develop a ‘Do it yourself divorce’ online resource
• distributed ‘CLE news updates’ via email to our
  CLE program subscribers sharing news about upcoming webinars, upcoming community events we will be attending, highlighting new CLE resources developed by other organisations, CLE project updates and other initiatives
• contributed specialist legal information to the Financial Counselling Australia newsletter
• increased our social media presence and reach across the legal assistance sector and with Members of Parliament (MPs) to promote our resources and key legal information
• produced and promoted animated videos in response to specific legal needs like the Aboriginal Community Benefit Fund (Youpla) funeral fund collapse, and flood insurance law issues
• participated in community events across Queensland, including Homeless Connect, NAIDOC Week events, disability awareness expos and regional council community events
• coordinated our CLE webinar program for community, health and education workers; we planned and delivered webinars and published the webinar video recordings on topics like domestic and family violence, Family Advocacy and Support Services, financial hardship and credit reporting, anti-discrimination and employment law, supporting clients appearing before the Mental Health Court or the Mental Health Review Tribunal, common legal issues for people affected by natural disasters, cost of living pressures and legal rights, the Defence and Veterans Legal Service, and Legal Aid Queensland’s services; all CLE webinars are live captioned and Auslan interpreted to meet accessibility requirements
• delivered 227 CLE activities to 7910 people and produced 103 resources in response to community group and agency requests and identified need; topics included the Love Bites healthy relationships program, domestic and family violence, parenting arrangements, natural disaster insurance and other legal issues, statute barred debt, Family Advocacy and Support Services, child protection, discrimination, supporting a person with mental illness through the Mental Health Review Tribunal, and accessing Legal Aid Queensland’s services
• coordinated and administered the CLE Collaboration Fund’s 13th round to resource collaborative initiatives and partnerships to extend the reach of our CLE work. The fund allows us to resource community legal centres (CLCs), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (ATSILS) and regional legal assistance forums (RLAFs) and specialist legal assistance forums to educate priority communities across Queensland. One hundred projects have been funded to date including seven projects in 2022–23. One of the funded projects will develop community-led, accessible and targeted legal information and resources in Dinka, Swahili, Sudanese, Arabic, Samoan and Tongan, and build community leader capacity to support community members when dealing with the criminal and youth justice systems, and with the forensic mental health system. Another funded project will develop an animated video in plain English to educate young people about their rights and the legal processes in Queensland’s youth justice system. For more information about the CLE Collaboration Fund, see page 44.

Discrete assistance

Information and referral

Legal Aid Queensland provides comprehensive statewide free legal information and referral services to disadvantaged Queenslanders. Our legal information and referral services can be accessed online via the Legal Aid Queensland website (legalaid.qld.gov.au), by phone through our client contact centre or in person at one of our 14 offices throughout metropolitan and regional Queensland.

Website

To support Queenslanders with their legal issues, we provide legal information, resources and information about our services across three websites:

• Legal Aid Queensland website
  • Legal information covering family, criminal and civil law written in plain language making it easy to use and understand.
  • A ‘For Lawyers’ section that includes updates,
    key policies and procedures for our preferred supplier law firms.
  • During the year, people visited the website 1,456,221 times with 2,624,306 pages being viewed.
• Your Story Disability Legal Support website
  • Provides information and resources to empower people with disability to safely share their story with the Disability Royal Commission and connect with local support services.
  • In 2022–23, we introduced webchat as another communication channel to provide real-time client support and increase client engagement.
  • During the year, people visited the website
    13,450 times.
• Defence and Veterans Legal Service website
  • Provides information and resources to support people engaging with the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.
  • During the year, people visited the website
    15,159 times.

We are committed to working towards digital accessibility for all Queenslanders by continually improving the user experience and applying the relevant accessibility standards.

Client contact centre

Our client contact centre is based in Brisbane and operates Monday to Friday during business hours.

The team also provided 1176 legal information and referral services via email.

We continued to give prisoners in correctional centres priority access to our client contact centre to reduce their waiting time. Prisoners are considered highly vulnerable clients as they have extremely limited access to legal services and support and are at a high risk of social exclusion and financial disadvantage. Prisoners’ call times are restricted and time waiting in a queue counts towards their call limit and impacts their capacity to deal with their legal issues.

In 2022–23, we continued to participate in the Queensland Police Service Police Referrals Service. The service helps people who come into contact with police and other community organisations to obtain support for legal issues.

We also worked to improve our business processes and systems to further streamline information and advice delivery to clients by:

• continuing a regular training program with specialist sessions on psychological wellness, cultural awareness, human rights and contemporary social issues
• using videoconferencing and technology to improve access to legal advice services
• embedding our client-focused call pathway in our training and work practices
• improving specialist reporting to allow improved analysis of incoming calls and service delivery trends.

Client Assistance Service

We continued to help some of our particularly vulnerable clients through our Client Assistance Service. The service is targeted to clients with multiple legal issues, who need extra help accessing Legal Aid Queensland services. The Client Assistance Service triages the client’s legal problems and provides the support they need to ensure they can access timely and appropriate legal services. This year, the service supported 204 clients.

Your Story Disability Legal Support

Legal Aid Queensland supported information and advice services to people wanting to share their experiences with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through Your Story Disability Legal Support. While submissions to the Disability Royal Commission closed at the end of December 2022, we continue to support our clients with private sessions, public hearings, information sessions and legal advice. This service is a free and independent national legal service jointly delivered by National Legal Aid and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services. Clients access the service online via the Your Story Disability Legal Support website (yourstorydisabilitylegal.org.au) or by calling the national Your Story Disability Legal Support information line on 1800 77 1800. Your Story Disability Legal Support answered 3164 calls and provided 1251 legal information and referral services to clients during 2022–23.

Defence and Veterans Legal Service

The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide was established in July 2021 and began hearings in December 2021. The Defence and Veterans Legal Service is a free and independent national legal service that was set up to support people who want to engage with the Royal Commission. Legal Aid Queensland provides information and advice services to serving defence members, veterans, and their families, carers and supporters to safely share their experiences with the Royal Commission. The service has answered 1434 calls and provided 396 information and referral services to clients since it began. The Defence and Veterans Legal Service can be accessed by calling 1800 33 1800 or visiting the website defenceveteranslegalservice.org.au

Legal advice and legal task services

Financially disadvantaged Queenslanders can access our free legal advice and legal task services by telephone, including through the National Relay Service, by videoconference or face-to-face at Legal Aid Queensland offices and at designated outreach services.

We provide free legal advice to eligible clients in:

Criminal law

• Criminal charges in the Magistrates, District and Supreme Courts
• Youth justice
• Traffic matters
• Mental health law

Family law

• Parenting issues (eg arrangements about children)
• Relationship issues (eg divorce, property settlement)
• Domestic and family violence
• Child support and maintenance
• Child protection
• Family dispute resolution

Civil law

• Anti-discrimination and human rights
• Farm and rural debt issues
• Social security appeals
• Peace and good behaviour
• Victim Assist
• Motor vehicle property damage
• Consumer and debt disputes
• Employment
• Natural disasters
• National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

The legal advice service is primarily delivered by our Brisbane-based First Advice Contact Team (FACT), specialist legal teams and regional offices.

First Advice Contact Team (FACT)

FACT provides face-to-face advice to eligible clients at our Brisbane office and remote legal advice via a statewide telephone service, and via videoconference where needed. Our highly skilled lawyers often provide advice across a range of legal issues each day, and respond to clients in custody or those needing urgent family law advice. FACT also provides legal task services for people who might need help with preparing letters and other documents following initial legal advice.

Prison Advice Service

Our Prison Advice Service primarily uses videoconferencing to provide legal advice services to people in Queensland’s prisons. Videoconferencing reduces travel time and provides cost savings. The Prison Advice Service and some regional advice lawyers also provide face-to-face advice services at designated prisons.

Refugee and Immigration Legal Service advice referrals

We continue to work with the Brisbane-based Refugee and Immigration Legal Service (RAILS) to provide a warm referral pathway for clients who have family law, domestic and family violence, or child protection issues. The lawyers provide advice through these referrals pathways and help clients apply for legal aid (if appropriate).

Consumer advice clinic

During 2022–23, we continued to provide telephone consumer advice clinics five days a week. We provided advice about:

• mortgage stress and housing repossession
• debt and debt collection practices
• credit cards and personal loans
• car loans
• small amount (payday) loans and consumer leases
• telephone and other utilities contracts
• insurance including home and contents, car insurance and funeral insurance
• Australian consumer law including faulty cars, unsolicited consumer agreements and training colleges and courses
• bankruptcy and part IX agreements.

Anti-discrimination advice clinic

During the year, we provided specialist advice clinics about state and federal anti-discrimination laws three days a week. We also provided advice about state human rights protections in these clinics.

We operate a specialist advice clinic one afternoon a week through an arrangement with the Queensland Human Rights Commission (QHRC). The clinic is available to clients whose complaints have been accepted by the commission. Clients receive advice via telephone about their complaint, the complaint process, the conciliation process and how to proceed to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT). During these clinics, we also provide task assistance to clients to help facilitate their access to justice.

Employment law advice clinic

We deliver specialist legal advice and task assistance to federal system employees about federal employment law matters under the Fair Work Act 2009, including unfair dismissal, general protections, bullying, discrimination, civil penalty provision breaches, stand downs and flexibility arrangements. We also provide advice on entitlements and disciplinary processes, and help clients apply for legal aid if appropriate. We provide telephone advice clinics five days a week. We also provide a specialist advice clinic through the Fair Work Commission’s Workplace Advice Service.

Social security appeals advice clinic

We continued to provide a specialist in-house legal advice clinic that focusses on providing advice to clients who do not yet have an appeal before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), including those who need help to lodge an appeal with the tribunal. This allows clients to achieve an early resolution rather than having to wait until their appeal reaches the tribunal. The clinic also supports clients whose appeal was unsuccessful and who are unsure how to progress their matter.

We also provided social security appeal advice clinics in collaboration with the AAT. During 2022–23, we provided telephone advice clinics through the AAT’s Social Services and Child Support Division and General Division two days each week. These clinics help clients who may be eligible for a grant of aid for their General Division appeal. The Social Services and Child Support Division clinic provides advice and minor assistance to clients who are representing themselves and many appeals are resolved at this level. We also refer vulnerable clients with appeals before the Social Services and Child Support Division with merit to Basic Rights Queensland for casework assistance.

NDIS advice clinic

We continued to operate an in-house NDIS advice clinic one day a week for clients who have received their National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) internal review decisions but who have not yet lodged an appeal before the AAT. We also help those who need help to lodge an appeal with the tribunal.

During the year, we provided NDIS appeals advice clinics through an arrangement with the AAT. These advice clinics are held three days a week to help clients who have lodged external reviews in the AAT. At these clinics we give specialist NDIS advice to participants in the NDIS, prospective participants, and nominees in relation to their appointments and, if appropriate, help them apply for legal aid.

Legal Advice Referral Pathways Program

We continued to deliver our Legal Advice Referral Pathways Program, which helps vulnerable clients, particularly women who have experienced domestic and family violence, to receive priority legal advice. The program operates in 10 locations around the state—Brisbane, Caboolture, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Woodridge, Maroochydore, Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Mackay and Townsville.

Women’s Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service and Application Assistance Program

During the year, we provided legal advice, support and information to women dealing with domestic and family violence matters and related child protection and family law matters, including through the Application Assistance Program and the Women’s Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service.

Child Protection Early Legal Service

The Child Protection Early Legal Service focuses on providing legal advice and advocacy for vulnerable parents early in child protection interventions. Lawyers work collaboratively with community-based support agencies to make sure the program reaches vulnerable parents involved, or at risk of becoming involved, with the child protection system. During the year, we have continued to develop a referral pathway partnership with the Office of the Public Guardian to expand and strengthen services provided to clients who are particularly vulnerable due to mental health and/or intellectual disability issues. We have employed a social worker to help with this work and to prepare social assessment reports for matters involving mental health and/or intellectual disability issues.

Early legal support involves advocating for parents to receive support and guidance to keep their children safe so statutory child protection intervention occurs only as a last resort. This support may involve legal advice and help before the start of court proceedings.

Child Protection Outreach Legal Service

The Child Protection Outreach Legal Service provides legal advice services to clients statewide via a telephone advice clinic. The service also provides regular Child Protection Duty Lawyer Services in Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Kingaroy, Gympie, Beenleigh and Cleveland. The service is delivered by Brisbane-based lawyers who regularly travel to regional Queensland.

We have established referral pathway partnerships with relevant stakeholders, including the Director of Child Protection Litigation, the Office of the Child and Family Official Solicitor and the Office of the Public Guardian to help clients in regional areas to get legal advice.

Child support advice clinic

We continued to deliver child support advice two days each week. The clinic provides people with legal advice about reviewing child support decisions, child support agreements, paternity and enforcing outstanding child support payments. Lawyers provide advice to clients on their prospects of success and/or evidence, and if appropriate, help them apply for legal aid.

Family law advice clinic

We provided legal advice each week to people experiencing complex family law issues. Lawyers provide advice to clients on their prospects of success and/or evidence, and if appropriate, help them apply for legal aid.

Domestic and family violence advice

During the year, we delivered specialist domestic and family violence advice services five days a week to help those affected by domestic and family violence and those who are responding to an application for a domestic and family violence order.

The Application Assistance Program helps women applying for domestic and family violence protection orders in the Brisbane Magistrates Court by:

• helping women prepare and lodge applications for domestic and family violence protection orders
• providing support for women in court
• helping women with risk assessments and safety planning
• referring women to legal and support services.

The Women’s Domestic Violence Court Assistance Service provides free and confidential help to all women who attend the Brisbane Magistrates Court for domestic and family violence matters. The service is available to all women applying for, or responding to, a domestic and family violence protection order, and helps them:

• access the court’s safety facilities
• understand what protection orders are, including their conditions and what to do if an order is breached
• understand the court process, including support and information
• talk to the police prosecutor and court staff
• make a safety plan
• access relevant legal and community services for crisis counselling and emotional support
• complete applications for legal aid.

Youth Legal Advice Hotline

Our Youth Legal Advice Hotline continued to give legal advice and support to young people, and assistance to youth justice stakeholders and Queensland Police. The hotline was established in 2017 to help young people with improved access to early legal advice with the aim of increasing the likelihood of their issues reaching an early resolution and promoting diversionary options or bail release for young people suspected by police of having committed an offence. Following the introduction of laws requiring Queensland Police to notify a legal aid organisation that a child is in custody for questioning, the hotline operating hours were expanded in 2019 to provide services on a 24-hour basis from Friday until Sunday afternoon. The hotline now operates Monday to Thursday from 8am to 9pm and from Friday 8am to Sunday 5pm. During the year, staff provided early legal advice and help for 1094 matters.

Natural Disaster Legal Help

During the year, we provided legal advice and representation to people affected by bushfires, flooding and severe storms
in Queensland.

We helped Queenslanders affected by the February 2022 rain event and flooding by:

• providing legal advice, minor assistance and representation on legal issues including insurance, financial hardship, banking and finance, and the assistance provided by the Queensland Reconstruction Authority
• attending community forums organised by local communities to provide advice and assistance
• attending community forums organised by the Insurance Council
• working with government disaster responders and community service and support organisations to provide assistance
• advocating to address systemic issues with industry responses to the disaster and recovery process.

Duty lawyer services

Criminal Law Duty Lawyer Service

Our Criminal Law Duty Lawyer Service operates in 81 Queensland Magistrates and Childrens Courts and plays a crucial role in our youth and adult justice systems. The service offers free initial legal advice and representation to people charged with criminal and serious traffic offences who are on bail or in custody in Queensland. Duty lawyers represent people on guilty pleas, make bail applications and request remands for clients.

Duty lawyer services are provided by our in-house lawyers, the ATSILS and authorised private lawyers who deliver services under roster or tender arrangements.

We are committed to case conferencing and mediating matters with the prosecution to ensure our clients have their legal issues resolved as soon as possible. This can have significant sentencing benefits for clients and can also result in savings to the criminal justice system by avoiding court time being wasted. It also means witnesses and victims do not have to go through the stress of attending court.

Family Law Duty Lawyer Service

Our Family Law Duty Lawyer Service provides help to self- represented litigants in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia throughout Queensland for family law matters. We provide services in Brisbane, Maroochydore, Toowoomba, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns.

The duty lawyer service provides information, legal advice, referrals and in some cases, representation for clients with matters in court that day. We also help people complete their own forms and documents, negotiate and settle consent orders, and seek adjournments. We help people complete applications for legal aid or access our review process if they have previously been unsuccessful with applications for aid.

Family Advocacy and Support Services

The Family Advocacy and Support Services operate in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia in Brisbane, Townsville, Rockhampton and Cairns.

This is a federal government funded service focusing on giving more and earlier help to clients impacted by family violence.

The service recognises people coming to the family law courts need more than just legal help—it involves lawyers and social support workers who can work together to address the client’s legal and non-legal needs.

The service provides legal advice and help for unrepresented people on their court date, complementing the Family Law Duty Lawyer Service. Legal help is also provided for clients who are not in court but have a very urgent family law issue, such as seeking recovery, or airport watch list orders for children.

Lawyers give people information and legal advice, negotiate with other parties, prepare simple court documents and represent people in court (in some situations). Support workers can help clients with safety planning and referrals for their social support needs. The service continues to provide a wrap- around legal and social support service to clients who need urgent help.

During the year, we began preparing to expand the service to help people at all Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia registries and circuit locations in Maroochydore, Toowoomba, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg and Mackay, and to provide mental health supports to complement legal and social support to clients. We will continue to be the primary service provider, and will engage external services to provide complementary legal, social and mental health supports in Brisbane and regional areas.

Domestic and Family Violence Duty Lawyer Service

We continued our role as a key partner involved in the Specialist Domestic and Family Violence Courts at Southport, Beenleigh, Townsville, Mount Isa, Palm Island, Brisbane, and Cairns. We operate duty lawyer services to support clients and the court. The service gives people access to free legal help before their court appearance. The service’s clients include those affected by domestic and family violence and those who are responding to an application for a domestic and family violence order. In Southport, the service also provides legal help to defendants charged with breaching domestic and family violence orders and related criminal cases. The duty lawyers provide legal advice, representation and referrals to other legal and support services for people appearing before the specialist courts.

This year, the duty lawyers in the Specialist Domestic and Family Violence Courts helped 13,009 people appearing before the court for civil domestic and family violence matters.

We also operated domestic and family violence duty lawyer services in 23 other court locations around Queensland.

The duty lawyers give free legal information and advice, help clients fill out forms and documents needed for that day in court, discuss the clients’ eligibility for ongoing support from Legal Aid Queensland in the domestic and family violence matter and other related legal problems, and provide referrals to appropriate support services. In some circumstances, the duty lawyer may also appear in court on the client’s behalf for their domestic and family violence matter.

The duty lawyer services are provided in the 30 courts by in-house lawyers and lawyers from preferred supplier law firms and CLCs. Providing legal help and referrals early in the court process helps applicants and respondents to better understand their options and the legal implications of these options. It also helps people to connect with support services early to keep them and their children safe.

Child Protection Duty Lawyer Service

We operated the Child Protection Duty Lawyer Service in Brisbane, Ipswich, Southport, Maroochydore, Toowoomba, Caboolture, Pine Rivers, Townsville and Cairns Childrens Courts.

The Child Protection Outreach Legal Service provided duty lawyer services in Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Kingaroy, Gympie, Beenleigh and Cleveland.

The duty lawyers provide free legal help to parents and young people before they appear in court for their child protection matter.

The service is a court-based advice model where lawyers give free legal information and advice, help people fill out forms and documents needed for that day in court and also talk to the clients about their eligibility for ongoing legal representation from Legal Aid Queensland. In some circumstances, the duty lawyer may also appear in court on the client’s behalf for their child protection matter.

The duty lawyer services are delivered by in-house lawyers and lawyers from preferred supplier law firms and CLCs. Lawyers being available to provide advice to people about their child protection issues help the clients to be properly informed before going into court, to feel more confident negotiating the legal process and more accepting of the outcomes.

Facilitated resolution processes

Resolving family law problems through dispute resolution processes

Legal Aid Queensland is a national leader in providing lawyer-assisted family law dispute resolution. We operate a statewide lawyer-assisted family dispute resolution program. We aim to resolve family law disputes before matters go to court or before a final hearing if court proceedings have started. The program achieved an outstanding result in 2022–23 , with 74 percent of matters achieving an early resolution.

We have dispute resolution conference organisers in Brisbane and regional centres around the state to help families. Family law dispute resolution conferences are held by videoconference and telephone—the videoconferencing format was introduced in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has become the primary format for conferences. An important part of our family law dispute resolution program is our property arbitration program, which allows parties to settle property disputes.

During the year, we continued a lawyer-assisted property mediation pilot to allow separated couples with property disputes to resolve these in a two-step conference and arbitration process that allows property disclosure and discovery to occur. The pilot was extended from December 2021 to June 2023. Following an independent evaluation of the pilot, the federal government is providing ongoing funding for the program.

Providing services to the farming community

Our Farm and Rural Legal Service provides free legal help to Queensland farmers and primary producers experiencing financial hardship related to their business, including those with severe debt problems or those in dispute with their lenders.

During the year, we gave legal advice via telephone or face-to- face and represented clients in mediations with their banks and finance providers. The service was delivered by our in-house lawyers and involved travelling thousands of kilometres on outback Queensland roads to see farmers on their properties.

Representation services

Our in-house practice, together with hundreds of private law firms and barristers, provide representation services to legally-aided clients in serious crime, general crime, youth justice, family law, child protection, domestic and family violence and other civil law matters. We use grants of aid to purchase these services from private lawyers and manage in-house work allocations.

About 75-80 percent of our legal representation is provided by private lawyers, with the remainder provided by our in-house practice.

Processing applications for grants of aid

Our Grants division is responsible for processing applications for grants of legal assistance and managing these grants following approval.

Applications are processed by staff in our Brisbane and regional offices. Demand for our services is high so we use strict criteria when granting aid for legal representation. In determining whether to approve a grant of aid, grants officers assess requests in line with our guidelines, which are set by the Legal Aid Queensland Board, and apply the means and merits tests. This process looks at the financial means of the person applying and the case’s merit. If an application is refused, internal and external review processes are available to applicants. We also allocate independent children’s lawyers in family law proceedings and separate representatives in child protection proceedings from the specialist panels we maintain.

Managing grants of aid

In addition to processing initial applications for legal aid, during the year we managed 42,369 ongoing cases—this involved assessing and issuing 77,505 extensions to the initial grants as matters progress, paying 81,560 accounts, and recovering financial contributions from clients and external agencies.

Reviewing decisions

We have an established review process where applicants can ask to review a decision to refuse legal aid. Most requests for review are conducted by a senior officer who was not involved in the original decision. The applicant may also request an external review of an internal review decision. Independent lawyers or barristers in private practice complete these reviews by considering all relevant information held and any extra information provided.

Applicants are invited to participate in the external review by telephone. In 2022–23, we considered 2301 internal reviews and external review officers considered 302 decisions. In 4.8 percent of cases the external review officer overturned Legal Aid Queensland’s decision.

Improving grants of aid

From 1 August 2022, we increased fees paid to preferred suppliers and counsel undertaking most state law matters by about 20 percent. We also increased fees for expert reports and witnesses by about 20 percent.

In October 2022, we changed our means (assets) test so that lump sum payments received by an applicant under the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme are exempt. We do not take these payments into account when we assess applications for legal aid.

In May 2023, we expanded our pilot where we get consent from legal aid applicants to allow us to access their Centrelink details through Centrelink Online (an approved and secure arrangement with Centrelink). The pilot, which allows us to confirm financial eligibility earlier and allows cases to proceed faster, now includes more far north Queensland locations.

In March 2023, we changed the way we verify the financial circumstances of prisoners in some low-risk criminal law matters by reducing the number of documents we request to confirm their eligibility. This change will allow more timely and effective services for prisoners.

In April 2023, we improved the structure of grants of aid associated with Dangerous Prisoner (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 matters to better reflect current legal processes and help lawyers manage these matters.

In May 2023, to support our Meriba Omasker Kaziw Kazipa (Torres Strait Islander Traditional Child Rearing Practice) program we introduced new grants of aid to better support people seeking help.

Legal help for war veterans and their dependents

We receive federal funding under the War Veterans’ Legal Aid Scheme to provide help to veterans and their dependents in relation to appeals of Veterans Review Board decisions about:

• war caused disability pension entitlements or assessment claims under Part II of the Veterans Entitlement Act 1986
• claims under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 about warlike or
  non-warlike service.

Federal government Family Violence and Cross-Examination of Parties Scheme

We receive funding from the Federal government Attorney- General’s Department to administer the Federal government Family Violence and Cross-Examination of Parties Scheme. Demand for representation through the scheme has been high with 604 notifications received from the family law courts during 2022–23. Each notice may relate to a number of parties and each party is invited to apply. We approve applications for funding about 12 weeks before the hearing date where the cross-examination is to happen. Applications for funding are not subject to means or merits testing, and we usually allocate these to a preferred supplier to prepare for and conduct the hearing where the cross-examination is to happen. In 2022–23, we approved 172 parties for funding.

In-house legal practices

Criminal law services

Magistrates Court

We provide legal representation in the Magistrates Court for guilty pleas, summary trials, committals, applications in line with s172 of the Mental Health Act, and other Magistrates Court matters.

Our lawyers are involved in the Magistrates Court call- over process in Brisbane and provide case conferencing services for summary and committal matters. In 2022–23, we continued to pilot a criminal law duty lawyer advice and representation service in the Brisbane and Holland Park Magistrates Courts. The pilots involve expanding existing advice services and aligning them with the duty lawyer service to minimise the need for processing grants of aid and streamline representation of people. These services were well received by the Magistrates Court and other stakeholders and provided legal help and representation to a significant number of defendants.

Consistent with the state government’s commitment to diversionary court programs, we have actively participated in supporting these courts in Queensland. The Queensland Drug and Alcohol Court continued to operate this year, and our extensive knowledge and experience of previous drug court programs has allowed us to positively contribute to the successful operation of this important specialist court program. We also continued to provide duty lawyer services to help unrepresented defendants in the Court Link criminal call- over in Brisbane and Ipswich. Court Link is a very successful bail-based case management program monitored by the Magistrates Court and aims to address the underlying causes of offending such as homelessness.

Serious and general crime

Our lawyers specialise in the defence of complex and general criminal law cases in Federal government and state jurisdictions.

We provide legal assistance in Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003 (DPSOA) matters. In DPSOA matters, we act for people responding to dangerous prisoner applications brought by the Attorney-General, at periodic reviews of continuing detention orders, in contravention proceedings for breaches of supervision orders, and in applications to amend and extend supervision orders.

Representation in our criminal litigation teams is often delivered in serious criminal law matters such as murder, major fraud and complicated drug prosecutions. The defence of these complex matters is challenging and demanding, requiring extensive investigation and preparation. It often sees our lawyers’ involvement over years from the time shortly after a defendant’s arrest through the various stages of a case within the criminal justice system.

The General Crime team has helped in absorbing criminal law work across all jurisdictions, particularly in south east Queensland’s District and Supreme Court jurisdictions.

Our experienced lawyers continued to contribute to criminal justice system consultation to help increase efficiencies in the superior courts, particularly in relation to streamlining criminal justice processes.

Appeals

Legal Aid Queensland represents people on appeal in the District Court appellate jurisdiction, Queensland Court of Appeal and the High Court of Australia. Appellate jurisdictions are the safety net for the criminal justice system and our lawyers appear in many appeals alongside in-house counsel.

Our lawyers work with stakeholders in the appellate jurisdictions to improve representation and the justice system generally. Our Appeals team has also been actively engaged with the Court of Appeal to ensure we provide efficient and effective defence representation in
legally-aided appeals.

Mental Health Court

Our Mental Health Court team provides advice and representation for people charged with criminal offences who have been referred to the Mental Health Court. The team is committed to helping Queenslanders affected by mental illness or significant impairment and strives to provide them with a voice in the justice system. The team is also a first point of contact for inquiries from practitioners and stakeholders about issues arising from the implementation of the Mental Health Act 2016.

The team works closely with our in-house counsel and Mental Health Review Tribunal team to conduct matters, representing the vast majority of non-privately represented clients appearing in the Mental Health Court.

Legal representation in the Mental Health Review Tribunal

We continued working with the Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT) to provide legal representation services to patients appearing before the tribunal under the Mental Health Act 2016.

The tribunal sits in 128 locations across Queensland, and during the year we provided legal representation services
to clients.

The MHRT is an independent statutory body protecting the rights of people receiving involuntary treatment for mental illness. It provides an independent review process and makes decisions about whether treatment should occur either in hospital or in the community.

To help service clients statewide, we have an in-house MHRT team based in Brisbane and in-house regional lawyers along with a network of 25 external legal service providers (private law firms that do legal aid work and CLCs). Our in-house team, working together with the network of service providers, gives legal help to some of Queensland’s most vulnerable people appearing in the tribunal across the state. The in-house team also plays an important role in providing legal advice to people in relation to tribunal process and procedure, the impacts of tribunal decisions, and options for appeal or review.

Arranging representation for MHRT referrals

Our Dispute Resolution Service is responsible for arranging free legal representation for people appearing before the MHRT where s740 of the Mental Health Act 2016 requires the appointment of a representative. Funded by Queensland Health to help meet its statutory obligations, we allocate
legal representation from a specialist panel including lawyers in our MHRT team as well as preferred suppliers and CLCs.

Helping young people in the criminal justice system

Our Youth Legal Aid teams provide specialist legal assistance to children and young people in the youth justice system, particularly in south east Queensland. The team is a significant stakeholder in the youth justice sector and advocates strongly on behalf of vulnerable children.

During the year, we continued to provide advice and policy submissions to government on issues relating to youth justice. Our youth justice lawyers also used their knowledge, experience and expertise to continue to provide statewide legal training programs for youth justice stakeholders to improve justice outcomes for young people.

The state government continued to fund us to deliver the Youth Legal Advice Hotline and our Legal Advocacy Program. The hotline enables young people and youth justice stakeholders to access legal information and advice about a criminal law matter by telephone, while providing Queensland Police investigating officers with an available lawyer to help promote early resolution of matters and diversionary options.

The Legal Advocacy program delivers an important legal advice and representation service for young people detained in custody, helping them to pursue bail applications where the case has merit. During the year, our team considered 1285 referrals and completed 141 bail applications before the Childrens Court of Queensland.

Our in-house Youth Legal Aid teams have continued to deliver duty lawyer services to court locations in south east Queensland providing expert advice and representation to children appearing before the Childrens Court.

In 2022–23, we continued to provide a Youth Practitioner Certification Program for all youth justice lawyers who do legal aid work. We delivered a full-day training session face to face and via webinar to 79 participants to improve the quality and effectiveness of legal representation for young people. Certification training included elements such as cultural capability, developmental psychology and impairment, trauma, speech and language, and competence in youth justice legislation.

We participated in the state government funded Fast Track Sentencing Pilot in Brisbane, Townsville, Southport and Cairns. The pilot ensures children appearing in court have easy and prompt access to a lawyer so that matters can be resolved quickly.

Family law services

Social science work

Our social scientists play an integral role in delivering our legal services to vulnerable clients. They support people through legal processes, complete social assessment and family reports and provide counselling services. We provide social science and support services from our Brisbane, Rockhampton and Townsville offices.

During the year, our social workers completed forensic assessment reports and psychological reports for independent children’s lawyers and separate representatives involved in family law and child protection matters and provided testimony before the courts. They helped our lawyers by providing clients with information and referrals to appropriate external organisations for help with non-legal matters such as mental health problems, substance dependencies and accommodation difficulties.

Helping those affected by domestic and family violence

We represent people in domestic and family violence matters through grants of aid to private law firms and to our in-house legal practice.

Our specialist multi-disciplined Violence Prevention and Women’s Advocacy team helps clients experiencing domestic and family violence. The team comprises specialist lawyers and social workers who provide services to people and practical advice about service delivery in domestic and family violence cases.

Rockhampton Domestic Violence Unit

The federal government funded Domestic Violence Unit in Rockhampton provides a wrap-around service to clients impacted by domestic and family violence. The service is designed to support the client’s legal and non-legal needs by involving lawyers and support workers working together to address the client’s needs. The service provides advice and assistance for clients in the domestic and family violence and family law jurisdictions in Rockhampton and surrounding areas.

Counselling Notes Protect

We work to deliver the Counselling Notes Protect service in partnership with Women’s Legal Service Queensland. The service provides advice, assistance and representation to clients about Queensland law that protects the counselling records of victims of sexual assault or alleged sexual assault from being used in some courts.

Helping people with child support issues

We provide information, referral, legal advice and representation services to clients in some child support areas. We can explain how the child support formula works, how the Family Tax Benefit is affected and how to prove paternity.

Children and young people

Helping children, their families and the courts to assess the best interests of children involved in legal proceedings is a key focus of the work conducted by our family and child protection lawyers. We continued to provide legal services for children and young people involved in family law and child protection matters in 2022–23.

Courts exercising family law and child protection jurisdictions make a significant number of independent children’s lawyer and separate representative appointments, where judicial officers order a child’s interests be separately represented. Independent children’s lawyers and separate representatives provide best interests representation for children, playing a unique and difficult role within the family law and child protection systems. They gather and assess independent evidence, help children and young people to participate in legal processes that affect them, and provide measured guidance and recommendations to the courts about the best interests of children and young people. The cases they work on are complex and demanding. Many of these matters are dealt with by specialist in-house lawyers. Our in-house independent children’s lawyers and separate representatives have significant experience and knowledge about parenting and child protection cases.

In addition to appearing in complex child protection and family law matters, our in-house lawyers also perform considerable work in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia’s Magellan list—a case management list devoted to cases where there are allegations of serious physical abuse or sexual abuse of children. We also perform significant work in the Evatt List in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia dealing with matters where there are serious allegations of family violence or other allegations heightening risk to children or parties, through the Lighthouse Project.

We facilitated independent children’s lawyer and separate representative panel meetings to help ensure knowledge is shared and issues are discussed between the private practitioners on the panel and in-house specialist lawyers. This ensures a consistent, quality approach to representing children and young people.

Child protection

We are the largest child protection legal service provider to individuals in Queensland, providing information and advice, representation of parents, direct representation of young people, separate representation of children and young people in the Childrens Court of Queensland, and limited representation in the QCAT in respect of reviewable decisions.

Civil justice services

Anti-discrimination services

We provide representation in matters involving anti-discrimination, sexual harassment, victimisation and vilification under state and Federal government laws. Where appropriate we attached ‘piggy back’ actions relating to relevant considerations under the Human Rights Act to state anti-discrimination complaints in the QHRC. We provide representation in the Australian Human Rights Commission, QHRC, QCAT, Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, Queensland Court of Appeal and Federal Court of Australia.

Employment law

We provide specialist legal representation to federal system employees for unfair dismissal and general protections matters covered by the Fair Work Act 2009. We provide representation in the Fair Work Commission, Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia and Federal Court of Australia.

Civil Law Legal Aid Scheme

The Civil Law Legal Aid Scheme is an outlays only scheme that helps financially disadvantaged people who have a civil law claim for which no grant of legal aid is available. Funded by the Public Trustee of Queensland and administered by Legal Aid Queensland, the scheme covers outlays required to prepare civil law claims for settlement negotiations and/or court proceedings. The scheme does not fund legal professional fees and lawyers accessing the scheme must agree to speculate their fees. The scheme operates under guidelines independent of Legal Aid Queensland’s grants of legal aid.

The scheme will consider providing funding for outlays where:

• there are reasonable prospects of the scheme recovering outlays
• the action can be dealt with in the Queensland legal jurisdiction
• an approved firm is willing to act on a speculative basis for their professional fees.

Applications are subject to means testing and merit assessment, and assistance will only be approved if it is considered the claim has reasonable prospects of success.

Consumer protection

We provide representation in credit, debt and consumer law matters. We provide advice to clients as well as lawyers and financial counsellors throughout Queensland. During the year, we helped people with:

• mortgage stress
• housing repossession
• debt (including debts faced by people experiencing family violence)
• credit cards and personal loans (including car loans)
• telecommunications and utilities
• misleading and deceptive conduct, unfair contract terms and unsolicited consumer agreements (including door-to-door selling)
• insurance (including flood, storm and bushfire insurance claims)
• debt collection practices
• credit reporting
• bankruptcy and part IX agreements.

Farm and Rural Legal Service

The Farm and Rural Legal Service provides advice and representation at farm debt mediations to Queensland farmers and primary producers facing financial hardship related to their business, including severe debt problems or those who are in dispute with their lenders.

Social security appeals

We provide casework assistance and representation for social security appeals in the general division of the AAT and the Federal Court of Australia.

National Disability Insurance Scheme appeals

During 2022–23, we continued to provide casework assistance and legal representation to eligible people in the General Division of the AAT and the Federal Court of Australia.

Workplace sexual harassment and mental health

During the year, we established a multidisciplinary team to help people experiencing workplace bullying and sexual harassment with their legal and social service needs. Lawyers work with a social worker to provide individual crisis intervention and support to clients experiencing a range of vulnerabilities.

Public Defender Chambers

Our team of barristers continued to demonstrate their commitment to efficiently providing quality specialist legal advocacy services to disadvantaged Queenslanders.

Catherine Morgan took on the acting Public Defender role and led the chambers throughout 2022. In May 2022, Deputy Public Defender Katarina Prskalo was appointed an acting judge of the District Court for six months. In 2023, Katarina Prskalo was appointed the Public Defender and continues to lead the group.

Our barristers continued to undertake complex trials and sentences in the Supreme, District and Magistrates Courts across the state, as well as appearing at all Mental Health Court sittings throughout the year. They also appeared for respondents to applications brought under the DPSOA before the Supreme Court in its civil jurisdiction.

Senior barristers regularly provided advice on the merit of applications for grants of aid for appeals against conviction and sentence and High Court special leave applications. They also appeared in appeals against conviction and sentence before the Court of Appeal.

Members of the Public Defender Chambers shared their legal expertise by contributing to Legal Aid Queensland’s continuing professional development (CPD) program, which is available to in-house and external lawyers. Our barristers also assessed and coached Bar Practice Course pupils by acting as ‘judges’ for mock trials and as presenters in advocacy training sessions. In doing so, the chambers continues to contribute to the professional training and development of junior barristers across the state.

Ensuring quality legal services

Legal Aid Queensland aims to provide quality legal services to financially disadvantaged people and we continue to improve the quality of our work and the outcomes for our clients.

Measuring client satisfaction

Legal Aid Queensland undertakes a client satisfaction survey every two years. The last survey was conducted in January 2022 with the next survey scheduled for February 2024.

In-house lawyers

We continued to use our Quality Legal Services Framework for Legal Aid Queensland employed lawyers. The framework lists the measures we have in place to ensure we maintain
a high standard of service delivery to our clients.

This includes:

• recruiting and selecting lawyers through open, merit-based selection processes
• providing an induction program for new lawyers to ensure they are familiar with standards of conduct, professional requirements and administrative processes
• developing and delivering a CPD program for lawyers
• compliance with legal profession standards
• compliance with legal service standards, case management standards and practice management standards
• providing legal professional supervision to lawyers
• regularly reviewing files and auditing lawyers
• responding to client feedback and complaints
• conducting a client satisfaction survey every two years to guide improvements to service delivery.

Preferred supplier law firms

Our preferred supplier law firms are required under their agreement with Legal Aid Queensland to meet our policies, guidelines, and file management, practice and case management standards.

As part of our commitment to ensuring funding is used in line with the terms and conditions of approved grants, we implement a program of compliance checks. These may focus on particular aspects across a large number of grants of aid and suppliers or focus on identified areas. During 2022–23, we focussed on specific issues and conducted targeted audits across a number of suppliers and areas of work.

We communicate all compliance activity outcomes to the participants and use these to continuously improve our grant funding processes.

We also regularly delivered CPD events throughout the year that were open to our preferred supplier law firms, in-person and online. These covered a wide range of professional, practice and procedure areas.

Working to improve equitable briefing of barristers

Legal Aid Queensland’s in-house legal practice continues to be a leader in implementing the Law Council of Australia’s target for equitable briefing of female barristers. In 2022–23, 36 percent of briefs were allocated to women barristers. The percentage of female in-house counsel still exceeds 50 percent.

Private law firms that do legal aid work (preferred suppliers) are required under the preferred supplier service agreement, when selecting counsel, to make a reasonable endeavour to comply with the Law Council of Australia’s Equitable Briefing Policy, and if required, provide information about the efforts made to identify and consider briefing female counsel.

In 2022–23, many preferred supplier private law firms continued to reach or exceed the Equitable Briefing Policy target of 30 percent.

As a strong supporter of women in the legal profession, we were delighted to present the Equitable Briefing Award at the 2022 Women Lawyers Association of Queensland Awards. Congratulations to law firm Kilroy and Callaghan on receiving the Legal Aid Queensland Equitable Briefing Award. We hope this award encourages law firms to reflect on their briefing policies, so they brief women barristers more frequently and more women are encouraged to join and remain at the Queensland Bar, enriching the legal profession and the community it serves.

Legal Aid Queensland will continue to drive cultural change within the legal profession by supporting the progression and retention of women barristers and addressing the pay gap and underrepresentation of female counsel in the superior courts.

Briefing counsel policy and committee

Our In-house Lawyers Briefing Counsel Policy ensures probity and accountability in decisions by our in-house lawyers when briefing counsel.

Our briefing policy sets out general briefing guidelines and provides specific procedures for briefing counsel in expensive or extraordinary cases.

The general briefing guidelines include requirements to:

• consider the Law Council of Australia’s Equitable Briefing Policy which aims to promote diversity, equality and respect to improve the retention of women barristers within the profession
• genuinely consider briefing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander barristers where it is possible, including developing barristers through our First Nations Junioring Program
• consider briefing in-house counsel to ensure cost effectiveness
• briefing regional barristers wherever a barrister of sufficient experience and expertise is available
• briefing in a way that develops a wide and diverse pool of barristers who can do legal aid work
• briefing barristers who have appropriate experience and expertise
• being objective, independent, apolitical and impartial.

A Briefing Monitoring Committee is chaired by the CEO to monitor in-house lawyers’ briefing practices and ensure the In-house Lawyers Briefing Counsel Policy’s goals are supported.

Access by disadvantaged groups

Assisting culturally and linguistically diverse clients

During the year, we continued our commitment to clients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.We promoted our services within these communities to increase people’s awareness of Legal Aid Queensland and improve their access to justice by:

• delivering CLE sessions on common legal topics to people from migrant and refugee backgrounds
• distributing translated legal information to people from migrant and refugee backgrounds
• using free interpreter services for clients in line with the state government’s Language Services Policy
• promoting our website, which includes a built-in screen reader and translation tool called ‘ReachDeck’, that can translate content into 90 languages.

Helping people with disability

We recognise many people with disabilities experience legal problems and require services that respond to their individual needs and circumstances. We continually aim to review and improve our websites in line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines endorsed by the Australian Government.

Web accessibility focuses on providing equal access and opportunity for people with disabilities. For example, websites should be compatible with screen readers used by people with vision impairment and with devices used by people who cannot use a mouse because of a physical impairment. It also benefits people with literacy issues, older users and mobile device users.

When people with disability make contact with our client contact centre or visit one of our offices, we have processes in place for identifying their vulnerabilities and giving them priority and supported access to our services.

People who are deaf, or who have a hearing or speech impairment, can contact us through the National Relay Service. We can also organise Auslan interpreters if needed.

The Client Assistance Service operates in the client contact centre to help some of our particularly vulnerable clients, especially those with multiple legal issues, who need extra help to access our services.

In 2019, we started Your Story Disability Legal Support which supports people to share their experiences with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. For more information about the service, see Your Story Disability Legal Support on page 26.

Improving services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients

We are committed to providing services to First Nations people. During the year, we:

• implemented our First Nations Operational Plan 2022–23, which continues to:
  • outline initiatives that implement the objectives of the First Nations strategic plan
  • increase awareness and accessibility of our services to First Nations people
  • position the organisation in providing culturally capable legal services for First Nations people
  • position Legal Aid Queensland as an employer of choice for First Nations people within the legal profession
  • contribute to developing a more equitable justice system that addresses the disparity of First Nations people in the broader legal profession
  • develop truth telling of the history of First Nations people and the way this impacts on the legal system
• facilitated the delivery of ongoing cross-cultural awareness training to staff to help ensure staff delivering services are culturally competent
• enhanced our cultural awareness training to understand the importance of communication for those who speak several First Nations languages in a legal setting
• delivered cultural capability training to regional office staff
• continued to promote our Indigenous Hotline, which gives priority to First Nations callers so they can access legal information and advice for the cost of a local call from a landline anywhere in Queensland
• provided an information stall at NAIDOC Week events
• maintained best practice guidelines for in-house and private lawyers performing legal aid work to ensure legal services are provided to First Nations clients in a culturally appropriate way
• participated in legal assistance forums and the Queensland Legal Assistance Forum (QLAF) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategic Working Group which aim to promote cooperation and collaboration between legal assistance service providers and non-legal services working with First Nations people
• continued to work towards our target of having
  nine percent of Legal Aid Queensland staff identify as First Nations
• facilitated graduate lawyer training with two First Nations graduates employed at our Maroochydore and Brisbane offices
• continued the Yadaba working group to provide consultation and advice on employment and training for First Nations staff at Legal Aid Queensland
• engaged with the Queensland Law Society on policy submissions and events
• presented a paper at the Community Legal Centres Queensland conference
• developed a cultural capability framework and e-learning resources for Legal Aid Queensland staff.

Legal services for regional, rural and remote Queenslanders

Legal Aid Queensland is committed to providing frontline legal services to rural, regional and remote areas of Queensland. We have 13 regional offices providing services throughout regional Queensland, and a statewide network of regional preferred supplier private law firms. There are 28 CLCs that contribute to supporting Queensland’s legal and justice system. Many CLCs help Legal Aid Queensland deliver domestic and family violence, family advocacy and support services, and child protection duty lawyer services in courts across Queensland.

We provide direct legal services such as grants of aid for court representation, legal information and advice, and duty lawyer services to people in rural, regional and remote Queensland (see Figures 9 and 10). About 40 percent of our legal advice and representation services are delivered to clients in non-metropolitan areas.

Other frontline legal aid services available to regional Queenslanders include:

• criminal law duty lawyer services in Magistrates and Childrens Courts in regional towns across Queensland
• family law duty lawyer services in Townsville, Cairns, Mackay, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Maroochydore, Toowoomba and Hervey Bay
• domestic and family violence duty lawyer services in Richlands, Beenleigh, Southport, Caboolture, Holland Park, Cleveland, Pine Rivers, Redcliffe, Sandgate, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Maroochydore, Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Rockhampton, Yeppoon, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns, Mount Isa and Palm Island
• child protection duty lawyer services in Ipswich, Pine Rivers, Caboolture, Beenleigh, Southport, Toowoomba, Maroochydore, Gladstone, Mackay, Cairns and Townsville
• family law, domestic and family violence law, and criminal law legal advices
• child protection legal advice services in Mount Isa, Mackay, Longreach, Emerald, Biloela, Gladstone, Kingaroy, Cherbourg, Murgon, Cleveland, Roma, Charleville and Cunnamulla
• legal advice and assistance from our Cairns office under the cultural adoption program (Meriba Omasker Ailan Kastom child rearing practices for Torres Strait Islanders)
• domestic and family violence duty lawyer services in Rockhampton, Yeppoon and Gladstone from a dedicated Domestic Violence Unit in Rockhampton
• providing legal and social work support, which meets clients’ legal and non-legal needs
• a Farm and Rural Legal Service, which provides free legal help to Queensland farmers and primary producers experiencing financial hardship related to their business, including those with severe debt problems or those in dispute with their lenders
• providing legal help to residents of bushfire and flood affected areas of Queensland
• in-house counsel appearing in regional and remote courts including circuits to Mount Isa, the Gulf of Carpentaria, Thursday Island, Cape York Peninsula, Bowen, Charters Towers, Hervey Bay, Gympie, Bundaberg, Kingaroy, Maryborough, Emerald and Gladstone
• Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia sittings across regional areas
• legal outreach clinics, where lawyers travel to surrounding regions or link in by videoconference to provide legal advice services, to Cooktown and Tully (Cairns office), Bribie Island (Caboolture office in conjunction with local CLCs), and Dirranbandi, Goondiwindi and Tara (Toowoomba office).

We also:

• help the ATSILS and the courts on circuit to the remote areas of Normanton, Burketown, Mornington Island and Doomadgee (from our Mount Isa office), and Cooktown, Thursday Island, Bamaga and other Torres Strait Islands (from our Cairns office)
• provide a statewide telephone legal information line and an Indigenous Hotline where people can call from a landline from anywhere in Queensland for the cost of a local call
• work with 42 community access points across Queensland that provide information about our services, access to some of our publications, and help people access free telephone legal advice.

Women as a priority client group

We treat women, especially women experiencing domestic and family violence, as a priority client group. We support the Queensland Government strategy to reduce domestic and family violence by delivering legal information, advice and representation to disadvantaged Queenslanders experiencing domestic and family violence. We support and acknowledge Queensland’s domestic and family violence laws’ objective—to maximise or increase the safety, protection and wellbeing of people who fear or experience domestic and family violence, including their children.

Our specialist Violence Prevention and Women’s Advocacy team works with clients who experience domestic and family violence. Their mission is to increase women’s access to our services and improve our responsiveness to meet women’s legal needs. They work to develop and maintain effective working relationships with service providers and identify, review and respond to issues impacting on women’s access to justice.

The team acts for women with complex legal issues in the areas of family law, child protection, discrimination, domestic and family violence and crime. They also provide services to women from culturally diverse backgrounds and women with intellectual disabilities. We have a network of family lawyers in 11 of our 13 regional offices who deliver legal services to local communities in response to issues arising from family relationships, including domestic and family violence, and child protection.

Our Violence Against Women Strategy is an integrated, collaborative and consistent response to clients who have been affected by domestic and family violence. Under the strategy, we have developed and implemented practical tools for our practitioners including:

• Best practice guidelines for working with people who have experienced domestic violence
• Best practice guidelines for lawyers working with respondents in domestic violence proceedings
• Best practice guidelines for working with sexual assault victims
• a domestic violence risk assessment tool
• an internal policy for responding to staff experiencing domestic violence.

Key disadvantaged group	Criminal law %	Family law %	Civil law %	Total %
Legal advice
Female	26.38	67.39	53.01	47.51
Indigenous	18.13	9.29	10.33	12.94
Regional and remote	14.49	17.20	13.05	14.90
Culturally diverse	10.17	13.30	13.42	12.16
Applications received Female Indigenous Regional and remote Culturally diverse	23.34 21.43 15.64 5.59	64.64 12.33 17.21 11.47	61.58 16.61 16.72 9.62	34.43 19.39 16.02 7.01
Applications approved Female Indigenous Regional and remote Culturally diverse	22.42 22.63 15.09 4.99	61.43 13.55 16.50 9.47	69.89 18.46 16.30 7.09	29.61 21.46 15.31 5.57

Table 6. Access by key disadvantaged groups 2022–23

11. Objective 2. Progress our vision through collaboration and policy leadership

Queensland Legal Assistance Forum

The QLAF is a body of organisations that facilitates collaborative service planning, design and delivery by legal assistance service providers. The forum coordinates working groups and forums and also oversees the Regional Legal Assistance Forums (RLAFs).

The QLAF meets quarterly and comprises:

• ATSILS
• Bar Association of Queensland
• Community Legal Centres Queensland
• Department of Justice and Attorney-General
• LawRight
• Legal Aid Queensland
• Queensland Council of Social Service
• Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service
• Queensland Law Society.

Legal Aid Queensland participates in the five specialist forums under the QLAF:

• Best Practice and Evidence Based Working Group—to promote cooperation and collaboration between legal and non-legal service providers to improve the quality and effectiveness of services and client outcomes through improved practice, efficient systems and professional, well-trained staff.
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Service Planning Working Group—to promote cooperation and collaboration between legal assistance service providers and non-legal services, including social, community and health services working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
• Mental Health Service Planning Working Group—to promote cooperation and collaboration between legal and non-legal service providers, including social, community and health services working with people with mental health issues, intellectual disability or cognitive impairment.
• Children and Families Legal Assistance Forum—to encourage cooperation and collaboration between legal assistance service providers working with families and children and to promote good practice across legal assistance services in delivering legal and related services to families and children. The forum comprises a Steering Committee and two associated working groups:
  • a Training Committee
  • a Child Protection Service Delivery Committee.
• CLE Legal Assistance Forum—to promote cooperation and collaboration between legal service providers who are delivering and initiating CLE activities. This allows service providers to share CLE information and resources to avoid duplication and fosters good CLE practice.

Regional Legal Assistance Forums

There are 12 RLAFs around the state. The RLAFs aim to encourage collaborative and cooperative working relationships between legal sector service providers in each region. By working together service providers have been able to identify emerging legal needs in their communities and help determine which legal service is best placed to meet legal needs and ultimately reduce service delivery gaps. Seven RLAFs now have a Collaborative Service Plan, providing a two-year guide for service delivery and development in their region.

Membership of the RLAFs includes Legal Aid Queensland, the ATSILS, local CLCs, non-legal social support services, community justice groups, Department of Justice and Attorney-General representatives, the Department of Child Safety, and the Department of Youth Justice, Employment, Small Business and Training.

RLAFs continue to broaden their memberships and collaborations in their regions. For example, several RLAFs have added to their membership representatives from their local social support agencies. There have also been presentations by the Queensland Human Rights Commission to all the RLAFs. This has proved very beneficial to streamlining access to justice and improving client outcomes by better collaboration with local agencies and the courts.

The CLE Collaboration Fund, which is offered annually, continues to be a valuable resource for RLAFs and CLCs. The fund is provided by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General and administered by Legal Aid Queensland. It is part of our CLE Strategy to encourage and resource collaborative partnerships which extend the reach of our CLE work. For more information about the fund, see page 25.

In 2022–23, the CLE Collaboration Fund awarded seven project grants totaling $150,000 to the following organisations:

• The Sunshine Coast RLAF, with Suncoast Community Legal Service as the lead agency, was granted $18,669 to deliver ‘Law in the burbs’—a one day CLE/community engagement event to provide legal information, advice and referrals to the community at three community centres in the region.
• HUB Community Legal received a $30,000 grant to develop community-led, accessible, targeted information and resources in languages for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. The project will undertake community leader capacity building to help leaders support CALD community members involved in the criminal and youth justice systems, and the forensic mental health system.
• The Youth Advocacy Centre was granted $14,900 to develop ‘Kids in the court’—an animated video using simple terminology to educate young people involved in the youth justice system about their rights and the legal process in Queensland.
• The Women’s Legal Service Queensland received a $7381 grant to partner with the Refugee and Immigration Legal Service to develop two factsheets about the Temporary Visa Holders Experiencing Violence Pilot Project. The pilot project provides family law and immigration legal support for women on temporary visas who are experiencing domestic and family violence and are financially disadvantaged. They will also deliver an information workshop for community service providers to raise awareness of the pilot project.
• Caxton Legal Centre was granted $30,000 to engage with Pacific Islander communities and community leaders to learn about common legal problems affecting these communities, including human rights issues, and to share legal information with the community through case studies. Learnings from this engagement will be used to develop targeted resources to help community leaders build capacity within their communities to navigate human rights legal issues. Caxton Legal Centre will also deliver a CPD session to share their project learnings with the legal assistance sector.
• The Refugee and Immigration Legal Service received a $29,700 grant to deliver the ‘Law Drums’ project. The project will use music and drum circles to engage CALD communities, including refugees and migrants, in entertaining, accessible workshops to learn, perform and create music while talking about the law. The project will also create short videos for social media featuring legal and life skills messages which emerge from the workshops.
• The LGBTI Legal Service received a $19,350 grant to create an interactive web-based resource for people with non-binary genders about their legal rights and how to enforce them to help address discrimination and other legal issues experienced by people with non-binary genders. The LGBTI Legal Service will also provide information, training and workshop materials for families of people with non-binary genders and organisations to support them in understanding and meeting their legal obligations.

Supporting community legal centres

We act as state program manager for CLCs, monitoring their financial reporting and ensuring service delivery targets are met. During 2022–23, we administered funding on behalf of state and federal governments to 28 organisations throughout Queensland (see Table 7 for more information).

The state government also provided $266,800 through its project funding account to the following organisations for various projects, including collaborative legal assistance forum projects:

• Community Legal Centres Queensland – Leadership and Governance Training Project ($116,000)
• Community Legal Centres Queensland – First Nations Sector Strategy Project ($150,000)
• Mackay Regional Community Legal Centre – Mackay RLAF Project ($800).

In 2021–22, the federal government announced additional funding over four years for women’s legal services to increase their capacity to provide legal services to women experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic violence. Three Queensland centres—First Nations Women’s Legal Service Qld, North Queensland Women’s Legal Service and Women’s Legal Service Queensland—received $6,424,755 of this funding in 2022–23.

The federal government also announced additional funding for centres already providing Domestic Violence Units and Health Justice Partnerships, with North Queensland Women’s Legal Service and Women’s Legal Service Queensland receiving $727,700 in 2022–23. These two centres received Domestic Violence Unit and Health Justice Partnership funding totalling $1,974,000 in 2022–23.

Extra funding was provided to eight organisations for the following purposes:

• Basic Rights Queensland — Working Women Queensland ($254,854.84)
• Community Legal Centres Queensland — Regional Collaborative Service Planning ($35,000)
• Community Legal Centres Queensland — CLCQ Leadership Forum sponsorship ($2000)
• Community Legal Centres Queensland — CLCQ State Conference sponsorship ($5000)
• HUB Community Legal — Queensland Foster and Kinship Care Legal Support ($105,070)
• Refugee and Immigration Legal Service — Afghanistan Crisis ($100,000)
• Refugee and Immigration Legal Service — Expiry Clinic ($101,975)
• Townsville Community Law — Veterans’ Legal Service Pilot ($287,000)
• Wide Bay Burnett Community Legal Service — Bundaberg Outreach ($90,000)
• Women’s Legal Service Queensland — Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre and Southern Queensland Correctional Centre services ($40,000)
• Youth Advocacy Centre — Domestic and Family Violence Youth Lawyer ($145,500).

In response to the 2022 flood event in south east Queensland, the federal government announced two rounds of flood funding to provide legal services to affected Queenslanders totalling $2,413,699. The following centres were recipients of this funding:

• Bayside Community Legal Service ($75,000)
• Caxton Legal Centre ($321,455 and $250,000)
• HUB Community Legal ($165,000 and $250,000)
• LawRight ($127,500 and $250,000)
• LGBTI Legal Service ($65,290)
• Pine Rivers Community Legal Service ($142,612
  and $250,000)
• Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion ($119,584)
• Tenants Queensland ($89,620 and $250,000)
• Wide Bay Burnett Community Legal Service ($57,638).

The federal government provided funding of $1,429,000 for workplace sexual harassment legal services in 2022–23.
The following centres received this funding:

• Basic Rights Queensland ($157,600)
• Caxton Legal Centre ($956,200)
• Gold Coast Community Legal Centre ($157,600)
• Mackay Regional Community Legal Centre ($157,600).

The federal government provided funding of $1,406,600 for legal support for mental health conditions in 2022–23.
The following centres received this funding:

• Aged and Disability Advocacy Australia ($150,000)
• Basic Rights Qld ($702,000)
• Cairns Community Legal Centre ($160,000)
• Caxton Legal Centre ($160,000)
• Pine Rivers Community Legal Service ($74,600)
• TASC National ($160,000).

Community legal centre	Federal government funding $	State government funding $	Total recurrent funding $
Aged and Disability Advocacy Australia Ltd	165 683	239 552	169 952
Basic Rights Queensland Inc.	437 307	632 272	935 519
Bayside Community Legal Service Inc.	61 837	89 405	139 238
Brisbane North Community Legal Service	123 877	179 107	–
Cairns Community Legal Centre Inc.	352 077	509 044	861 121
Caxton Legal Centre Inc.	1 026 475	1 484 109	2 510 584
Central Qld Community Legal Centre Inc.	458 215	662 500	1 120 715
Community Legal Centres Queensland	30 000	503 932	533 932
Environmental Defenders Office Ltd	–	401 627	401 627
First Nations Women's Legal Service Qld	280 943	406 196	687 139
Gold Coast Community Legal Centre & Advice Bureau Inc.	531 595	768 597	1 300 192
HUB Community Legal	446 598	645 705	1 092 303
LawRight	729 366	1 054 540	1 783 906
LGBTI Legal Service Inc.	–	265 596	265 596
Mackay Regional Community Legal Centre Inc.	198 097	286 417	484 514
North Queensland Women's Legal Service Inc.	574 740	830 978	1 405 718
Pine Rivers Community Legal Service	367 393	531 187	898 580
Prisoners’ Legal Service Inc.	234 743	339 400	574 143
Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion	278 350	402 446	680 796
Refugee & Immigration Legal Service Inc.	416 729	602 522	1 019 251
Suncoast Community Legal Service Inc.	215 099	310 997	526 096
TASC National Ltd	880 889	1 273 620	2 154 509
Tenants Queensland Inc.	150 184	217 141	367 325
Townsville Community Legal Service Inc.	232 127	335 616	567 743
Wide Bay Burnett Community Legal Service	214 638	310 331	524 969
Women's Legal Service Queensland Inc.	829 576	1 199 427	2 029 003
Youth Advocacy Centre Inc.	199 028	287 760	486 788
YFS Legal	281 004	406 285	687 289
Total	9 716 570	15 176 309	24 892 879

Table 7. Recurrent core funding for CLCs from state and federal governments 2022–23

Law and legal service reform

In 2022–23, we continued to respond to policy and legislative reform proposals from state and federal government, commissions of inquiry and industry bodies.

We made the following submissions:

Criminal law and youth justice

• Consultation Draft Evidence (Domestic Violence Proceedings) Regulation
• DNA Commission of Inquiry
• Inquiry into decriminalisation of certain public offences, and health and welfare response
• Queensland Police Service review of Child Protection (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) Act 2004
• Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
• Review of section 197 of Crime and Corruption Act 2001
• Review of serious and organised crime legislation
• Corrective Services (Emerging Technologies and Security) Amendment Bill 2022
• Crime and Corruption Commission review of Child Offender (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) Act 2004
• DNA Commission of Inquiry – Possible recommendations impacting criminal justice system
• Monitoring Place of Detention (Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture) Bill 2022
• Offending Prevention Service (service for potential child abuse offenders to contact for help)
• Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
• Inspector of Detention Services – Ombudsman request for feedback on development of inspection standards
• Proposed amendments to justice related legislation
• Proposed amendments to Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1978
• Operation of Penalties and Sentences Act’s provisions, reserve jurors and minimum jury deliberation time
• Crimes Amendment (Strengthen the Criminal Justice Response to Sexual Violence) Bill 2022
• Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
• Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council review of sentencing for sexual violence and aggravating factor for domestic and family violence offences

Civil justice

• National Disability Advocacy Framework 2022–25
• Draft Queensland Police Service policing for diverse genders, sexualities and sex characteristics
• Regulating Buy Now, Pay Later in Australia
• Proposed amendments to Australian Financial Complaints Authority Rules and Operational Guidelines

Domestic and family violence

• Domestic and Family Violence Protection (Combating Coercive Control) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
• Draft National Principles to Address Coercive Control

COVID-19 legislation

• Extension of Corrective Services COVID-19 powers for 12 months

Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce

• Implementing recommendations from the Hear Her Voice—Women and girls’ experience across the criminal justice system report

Other submissions

• Proposed changes to Queensland’s Information Privacy Framework
• Queensland Law Society consultation on review of r11A of Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules (conflict checks)
• Strategic Review of Office of Information Commissioner
• Proposed changes to Uniform Civil Procedure Rules – access to documents by non-parties
• Proposed Judicial Commission
• Postal Services Modernisation Discussion Paper

Stakeholder engagement

Legal Aid Queensland Stakeholder Meeting

The Legal Aid Queensland Stakeholder Meeting provides a regular forum for consultation with the legal profession and for discussing and managing stakeholder concerns. The group comprises nominated representatives from the Queensland Law Society and the Bar Association of Queensland and is chaired by Legal Aid Queensland’s CEO.

The group met three times during the year. During these meetings members were consulted on and provided feedback about the:

• state budget and fee increases to private lawyers who do legal aid work
• Specialist Domestic and Family Violence Courts’ expansion
• Fast Track Sentencing Pilot for youth justice matters
• Family Advocacy and Support Services’ expansion
• structural review of state grants of aid
• expansion of the scope of s21O of the Evidence Act.

12. Objective 3. Build on our business capability, sustainability and workplace culture

Our people

Workforce strategy

The Workforce Strategy 2020–23 supports achieving Legal Aid Queensland’s vision to be a great place to work where our people are respected, valued, safe and supported. The workforce strategy outlines three areas of focus—people, culture and capability. We embrace diversity, flexibility, learning and continuous improvement to deliver quality legal services.

Our Workforce Strategy is aligned to our strategic and operational plans as well as relevant Queensland Government frameworks including:

• 10 Year Human Capital Outlook
• Leadership Competencies for Queensland
• Be Healthy, Be Safe, Be Well Framework
• Multicultural Action Plan.

The strategy is supported by the Workforce Action Plan 2022–23, which outlines the initiatives to be undertaken during the year in response to feedback from the Working for Queensland Employee Opinion Survey. During the year, we made progress in implementing initiatives from the Workforce Action Plan 2022–23. In particular, we focussed on strategies to increase awareness of, and manage, psychosocial hazards at work, and also on enhancing our approach to recruitment and selection.

Learning and development

We continued to provide our in-house CPD program during 2022–23. Most sessions are open to all staff, as well as law firms that provide legal aid services, CLCs and the ATSILS. Our program aims to ensure our lawyers and those that provide legal aid services are up to date with the latest legislation changes and have the opportunity to develop their professional skills and legal knowledge. The program allows legal staff to earn CPD points, which are needed to renew practising certificates each year.

Other development opportunities for staff included:

Conferences and intensives

• Civil law conference
• Early career lawyer conference
• Grants conference
• Criminal law duty lawyer conference
• Independent children’s lawyer intensive and ‘Nuts & Bolts’ workshop
• Crime litigation support officer conference
• Domestic and family violence duty lawyer training
• Family law intensive
• Family law litigation support officer conference
• Regional principal lawyer conference
• Youth practitioner certification training
• CPD program
• Conference organisers conference
• First Nations network conference

Cultural competency program

• Cultural awareness
• Cultural competency

Psychological wellness training program

• Psychological impact of working in the legal profession
• Responding to threats of harm
• Managing aggressive client behaviour
• Understanding addiction and substance abuse
• Sustaining resilience
• Safe workplace cultures
• Dealing with difficult times and situations
• Trauma informed practice

Essential skills

• Induction training for all new staff
• Human rights
• Good decisions
• Computer systems, including in-house systems
• Library and research
• Communication skills
• Applying for jobs
• Train the trainer workshops
• Change management
• Effective planning and time management
• Work, health and safety
• Project management
• Unconscious bias
• Presentation skills
• Writing briefing notes
• Policy writing
• Effective feedback

Leadership pathways program

• New managers course
• Leading remote teams
• Recruitment and selection
• Supervision and feedback
• Transitioning to management
• Corporate skills for new managers

Staff have access to the Study and Research Assistance Scheme and the Certified Agreement training initiatives, which provide funds for higher educational requirements. Staff can also access external training and conferences for individual development needs.

We also provided staff with face-to-face and online e-learning opportunities to familiarise them with our policies and procedures, and to develop their skills and knowledge. Most in-house training is regularly reviewed by staff evaluations and improvements are made where appropriate and in conjunction with the facilitator.

Attracting and retaining staff

We focus on supporting our staff’s wellbeing. We offer various forms of flexible working options, including accessing accrued time leave, working part time, job sharing, remote working and purchased leave arrangements.

We have implemented strategies to help our staff effectively manage the possible psychological impacts of their work.

We are particularly aware our lawyers, grants officers, client information and customer service officers, and support staff are routinely involved in work that is confronting and stressful, which puts them at risk of suffering vicarious trauma. These risks were addressed by arranging workshops on managing the psychological impacts of practising law and managing aggressive client behaviour. We also provided staff with information about support networks and self-help strategies, and access to confidential counselling services.

Graduate recruitment program

Legal Aid Queensland continued its strong commitment to foster graduate lawyers into Queensland’s legal profession. We continued our two-year graduate program in 2022–23 with five graduates in regional centres and Brisbane— including two graduates who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders. The program involves a six-month placement in criminal law and a six-month placement in family law (which can potentially include some civil law work). After completing those two rotations, graduates are given the opportunity to continue their placement in their preferred stream to further develop their experience, knowledge and skills.

Workplace composition (full-time equivalents)

As of 30 June 2023, Legal Aid Queensland had 652.68 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees working in 14 centres throughout the state (see Table 8 for more information).

Employment category	FTE	FTE workforce %
Permanent	535.57	82.06
Temporary	105.61	16.18
Contract	11.50	1.76
Casual	0.00	0.00
Total	652.681	100.00

Table 8. Actual staff by employment type (by FTE) 2022–23

1 The total FTE aligns with workforce profile reporting requirements.

Gender	Number (headcount)	Total workforce % (calculated on headcount)
Woman	556	78.42
Man	152	21.44
Non-binary	<51	0.14

Table 9. Gender 2022–23

1. To ensure privacy, where there are less than 5 respondents, specific numbers have been replaced by <5.

Diversity groups	Number (headcount)	Total workforce % (calculated on headcount)
Women	556	78.42
Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples	31	4.37
People with disability	41	5.78
Culturally and linguistically diverse – speak a language at home other than English (including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages or Australian South Sea Islander languages)	13	1.83

Table 10. Diversity target group data 2022–23

	Women (Headcount)	Women as percentage of total leadership cohort % (Calculated on headcount)
Senior Officers (classified and s122 equivalent combined)	21	70
Senior Executive Service and Chief Executives (classified and s122 equivalent combined)	9	60

Table 11. Target group data for women in leadership roles 2022–23

Industrial framework

Legal Aid Queensland employees are engaged under the Legal Aid Queensland Employees Award — State 2015 and State Government Entities Certified Agreement 2019. We also apply particular employment provisions of the Public Service Act 2022 through the Legal Aid Queensland Regulation 2023. We undertake consultation on industrial relations matters through an Agency Consultative Committee that includes employee, union and employer members.

Equal employment opportunity

We are committed to equal employment opportunity (EEO) principles and have successfully implemented these principles across the organisation. Our EEO statistics highlight our commitment to equitable recruitment, selection and promotion policies (see Table 9 for more information). We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where all employees feel respected, valued and supported.

Legal Aid Queensland’s staff comprises 78.42 percent women, with 52.94 percent of leadership positions held by women. We support women in the workplace through equal access to development, promotion and flexible work arrangements.

We have supported First Nation’s employment through a dedicated role in the People, Culture and Capability team and implementing strategies to enhance cultural capability and cultural safety. We transitioned a number of positions to identified in 2022–23 to ensure our workforce is representative of our client base and to contribute towards increasing economic participation of First Nations people in the workforce to reach our target of nine percent First Nations employees.

We partnered with JobAccess in 2022–23 to review our recruitment processes with a view to achieving barrier-free application processes for all people, including those with disability.

During the year, we also hosted work experience placements for refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants to provide experience within the public service for people from CALD backgrounds.

Measuring staff engagement

We continue to participate in the whole-of-government Working for Queensland Employee Opinion Survey.

Our results in 2022 were very positive compared with the wider Queensland public sector. Ninety-one percent of staff completed the survey, with 75 percent of those who responded reporting high levels of engagement. Eighty percent of staff indicated they engage in flexible work.

The feedback we received from the survey was invaluable to continuing to build on things we do well as an organisation. We will continue to focus on areas for improvement and we will continue to implement changes in response to the survey feedback.

Code of conduct

Legal Aid Queensland is covered by a whole-of-government Code of Conduct. The single Code of Conduct reflects ethical values contained in the Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 and covers the following principles:

• integrity and impartiality
• promoting the public good
• commitment to the system of government
• accountability and transparency.

The code guides us in managing issues like:

• conflicts of interest
• personal conduct
• commitment to service delivery
• information sharing and relationship building across agencies
• adherence to organisational values and policies
• continuous performance improvement
• appropriate use of official information and resources.

Our Workplace Behaviours Policy also provides standards relating to appropriate workplace behaviour and outlines obligations relating to the Code of Conduct. We manage Code of Conduct breaches in line with the positive performance management principles outlined in the Public Sector Act 2022 and the Public Service Commission’s Discipline Directive.

We provide staff with Code of Conduct and workplace behaviours training when they start work and then annually.

Our systems and processes

Records and information management

Under the Public Records Act 2002, we are required to make and keep full and accurate records of our activities, and to comply with records and information management policies, standards and guidelines issued by the State Archivist. We use OpenText Content Manager 9 as our primary electronic document and records management system (eDRMS). This system integrates with other core business systems, which has improved how we manage client records.

In 2022–23, we continued records and information management reforms to improve and support good corporate governance by:

• implementing a new file structure in our eDRMS for managing records relating to our employees, to better enable us to manage this increasingly diverse range of records
• starting to review our Retention and Disposal Schedule which we last reviewed in 2011
• consulting with our staff to provide guidance on corporate recordkeeping requirements in relation to the Records Governance Policy
• refining digitisation processes to continue expanding Legal Aid Queensland’s corporate memory
• re-sentencing records in line with the latest General Retention and Disposal Schedule as issued by Queensland State Archives.

We continued to progress the transition from paper to digital records by:

• implementing new technology so our regional offices can digitise their records instead of transporting physical records to Brisbane to be scanned
• upgrading our digitisation software and associated infrastructure to increase our processing capacity
• identifying opportunities where a scan-first process can be implemented.

We improved our records and information management system’s reliability and security by:

• implementing internal audit recommendations
• participating in user group sessions to keep abreast of the organisation’s eDRMS capabilities and implementing changes.

We continued to implement appropriate disposal activities by:

• planning to start destroying physical source records after digitisation, where allowed, to reduce our physical storage overhead
• reviewing our disposal procedures and implementing appropriate changes in line with best practice.

We have collaborated with other government agencies to share knowledge about best practice records and information management by participating in:

• focus group discussions with agencies such as Queensland State Archives
• professional development opportunities delivered by Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia—the core industry professional body for records and information management.

Library services

Our library provides comprehensive reference, research and research-training services to our staff. It supports legal service delivery, planning and management through its modern collection, knowledge management and current awareness services, and experienced staff.

During the year, we:

• maintained our specialty collections of criminal law, family law and civil law judgments to provide our lawyers with case law tools designed for their needs
• trained staff to effectively use information resources for legal research
• produced eight case law, four legislation and five legal news alerting services for legal and corporate teams.

Key in-house legal information resources are available to preferred supplier law firms, CLCs and the ATSILS to help them provide high quality legal services to clients.

Reducing environmental impact

During 2022–23, we continued work to improve energy
and conservation efficiencies to help reduce our environmental impact.

Efforts to achieve savings have continued through:

• major upgrades to the high efficiency water chiller for our air-conditioning system at 44 Herschel Street to drive efficiencies and control over air-conditioning through the building
• choosing more energy efficient cars when replacing vehicles in our fleet
• investigations into electric fleet vehicles, including installing electric charging stations
• using multifunctional devices for printing, copying, faxing and scanning to reduce our energy use and carbon footprint
• using rainwater collected in our three 16,000 litre water tanks to flush our toilets and irrigate our gardens at our 44 Herschel Street, Brisbane office building
• reusing water (condensation) from our air-conditioning systems to flush our toilets
• closely monitoring and measuring our energy and water use figures to inform and encourage staff
• implementing an electronic electricity use and reporting tool, which is monitored daily
• monitoring our daily water use to check for potential water leaks in our systems and reporting on water loss
• reducing our air-conditioning use during the cooler months
• modifying our air-conditioning water pumps so they shut down when the chiller cycles off
• increasing sensor lighting to reduce energy use
• introducing timer technology to reduce use of water boilers, hot water systems and water pumps
• educating staff about ways they can help save water and energy
• managing our cleaning contract and service hours to reduce after-hours lighting use
• participating in a long-term whole-of-government energy supply contract to increase purchasing power and improve supply conditions, while also reducing energy pricing and costs
• using videoconferencing facilities to reduce
  transport-related carbon emissions, energy use and associated costs
• recycling paper, cardboard, cans, glass and printer toner cartridges
• constantly looking for opportunities to further reduce our water and energy use.

Information Communication and Technology program

During 2022–23, we continued to complete work as part of the Information Communication and Technology (ICT) 2020–23 Strategic Plan. We also started several business improvement projects related to establishing a robust infrastructure, improving mobility and implementing modern technologies.

In early 2023, we began developing the ICT Strategic Plan 2023–26, which will supersede the previous plan. The ICT Strategic Plan 2020–23 outlines the key areas in which Information Technology (IT) Services will focus planning, investment and delivery:

• supporting the effective and efficient operation of the organisation and its business through ICT
• advancing the organisation’s business with better use of ICT on a modern mobile digital platform
• engaging more easily with the public, preferred suppliers, government departments and non- government organisations
• building a capable, trusted and more forward-looking ICT provider.

During the year, we:

• developed a system to increase IT Service’s efficiency in providing user accounts, and improved the ‘new user’ form
• completed a project to migrate IT services to a new hosted data centre provider ensuring the continuity of IT services
• continued to roll out a statewide network equipment upgrade that is essential for maintaining business continuity across our regional offices
• reviewed and updated a business case for replacing our core business applications
• worked with external consultants to develop project briefs for external document sharing and electronic signature initiatives
• increased network capacity in our offices to support staff growth
• worked with external cyber security specialist consultants to improve our cyber security posture and allow greater visibility for security information and event management
• continued working towards completing initiatives outlined in the ICT Strategic Plan 2020–23
• began upgrading our primary legal case management system, Visualfiles, and delivered template updates for the Dispute Resolution Services Property Pilot project
• deployed new laptops to more staff to ensure sufficient mobile devices are available to all staff.

13. Objective 4. Contribute to the administration of justice

Working with government and justice system stakeholders

We supported government policy development and the justice system’s efficient management by collaborating with our colleagues in government and the wider justice system.

This involved participating in the:

• Queensland Courts Safety and Risk Committee
• Queensland Courts Users Stakeholder Group
• Streamlining Criminal Justice Committee and Working Groups (Remand and Forensics)
• Standard Bail and DPSOA Order Conditions Project
• Federal Circuit Court Stakeholder Group
• Family Court Stakeholder Group
• Domestic and Family Violence Specialist Court Working Group
• Brisbane Domestic Violence Court Stakeholder Group
• Brisbane Child Protection Court Stakeholder Group
• Childrens Court Committees for Youth Justice and Child Protection
• Local Childrens Court Stakeholders meetings throughout Queensland
• Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council
• Bar Council
• Bar Association of Queensland Access to Justice Committee and Pro Bono Committee, and Equal Opportunity and Diversity Committee
• Women Lawyers Association of Queensland Criminal Law Sub-Committee
• Prisoners’ Legal Service Management Committee
• Queensland Courts DNA Streamlining Committee
• Specialist Court, Referral and Support Services Steering Group
• Mental Health Review Tribunal Stakeholder Meeting
• Mental Health Court Stakeholder Meeting
• Chief Justice’s meetings with Queensland Courts and the legal profession
• Caxton Legal Service First Nations Working Group
• Australian Bankers Association Consumer Outcomes Group
• Insurance Council of Australia Consumer Liaison Forum
• Australian Financial Complaints Authority Consumer Advisory Panel and Consumer Advocates Liaison Meeting
• ASIC Regional Liaison Committee
• ASIC Consumer Regulator Forum
• Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Consumer Forum
• Financial Literacy Action Groups Logan and Ipswich
• ASIC Consumer Insurance Forum
• Somerset Interagency Meeting
• Brisbane Central Interagency Meeting
• Banking Code Compliance Committee’s Small Business and Agri Business Advisory Panel
• Queensland Human Rights Commission Human Rights Advocates Group
• Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce forums
• Criminal Procedure Review stakeholder feedback forums and working group
• Department of Justice and Attorney-General Bail Information Accessibility Project
• Queensland Law Society’s LGBTQI+ Criminal Justice Working Group.

We participated in the following Queensland Law Society policy committees:

• Children’s Law
• Criminal Law
• Domestic and Family Violence
• Family Law
• Elder Law
• Future Leaders
• Competition and Consumer Law
• Banking and Finance
• Access to Justice/Pro Bono Law.

We also worked on issues affecting First Nations clients with:

• Institute for Urban Indigenous Health
• QLAF
• ATSILS
• Queensland Indigenous Family Violence Legal Service
• Queensland Law Society
• LawRight
• Caxton Legal Centre
• Community Legal Centres Queensland
• Queensland Human Rights Commission
• YFS Legal
• Queensland University of Technology
• Central Queensland University.

Duty lawyer services across Queensland Courts

We are committed to providing frontline legal services to metropolitan, rural, regional and remote areas of Queensland. We have 14 offices throughout the state and partner with a statewide network of preferred supplier private law firms, ATSILS and CLCs that contribute to supporting Queensland’s legal and justice system. Many preferred supplier firms and CLCs help Legal Aid Queensland deliver duty lawyer services in courts across Queensland. See Figure 3 for more information.

Supporting our service delivery partners

In addition to our experienced in-house practice, we rely heavily on our network of private law firms, barristers and specialist reporting providers to ensure the coverage and continuity of legal assistance services across the state. Without the support of our service delivery partners, we would be unable to adequately service the legal needs of financially disadvantaged Queenslanders.

An injection of funding from the state government in 2022–23 allowed us to increase the fees paid to private lawyers, barristers and specialists like psychiatrists who do state legal aid work on our behalf, making this work more financially viable for those in private practice.

By increasing fees, we are better placed to not only attract and retain a network of quality external service providers, but it has also allowed for professional fees for state matters to be more closely aligned to comparable work in Commonwealth matters, as well as being more aligned with the actual cost of delivering services.

We look forward to working with the government to ensure Legal Aid Queensland remains appropriately resourced so our service delivery partners will continue to do this important work, particularly in regional, rural and remote areas where we have no office location.

Throughout the year, we also continued to support private law firms that do legal aid work by:

• inviting them to attend CPD events covering a wide range of professional, practice and procedure areas
• providing access to key legal information resources via our library to help them provide high quality legal services to clients
• publishing regular e-newsletters to communicate
  key information.

Open data

Data about the Queensland Language Services Policy is available on the Queensland Government Open Data portal. There is no data to report for 2022–23 about consultancies or oversees travel. To access more information, government data and the Annual Report 2022–23 Open Data, visit data.qld.gov.au

14. Financial statements

Download Legal Aid Queensland's Financial statements for 2022-23

Download Legal Aid Queensland Management certificate for 2022-23(PDF, 117KB)

Download Auditor's report(PDF, 131KB)

15. Acronyms and abbreviations

AASB	Australian Accounting Standards Board
AAT	Administrative Appeals Tribunal
ARRs	Annual report requirements for Queensland Government agencies
ASIC	Australian Securities and Investment Commission
ATO	Australian Taxation Office
ATSILS	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service
CALD	Culturally and linguistically diverse
CEO	Chief executive officer
CFO	Chief finance officer
CGO	Chief governance officer
CLC	Community legal centre
CLE	Community legal education
CPD	Continuing professional development
CPO	Chief people officer
DPSOA	Dangerous Prisoners (Sexual Offenders) Act 2003
eDRMS	Electronic document and records management system
EEO	Equal employment opportunity
FBT	Fringe Benefits Tax
FAA	Financial Accountability Act 2009
FACT	First Advice Contact Team
FPMS	Financial and Performance Management Standard 2019
FTE	Full-time equivalent
GST	Goods and Services Tax
IASB	International Accounting Standards Board
ICT	Information Communication and Technology
IT	Information technology
MHRT	Mental Health Review Tribunal
MP	Member of Parliament
NDIA	National Disability Insurance Agency
NDIS	National Disability Insurance Scheme
NLAP	National Legal Assistance Partnership
OESR	Office of Economic and Statistical Research
PCC	People, Culture and Capability
QCAT	Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal
QHRC	Queensland Human Rights Commission
QLAF	Queensland Legal Assistance Forum
RAILS	Refugee and Immigration Legal Service
RLAF	Regional Legal Assistance Forum
SVS	State Valuation Services

16. Appendix

Compliance checklist

Summary of requirement		Basis for requirement	Annual report reference
Letter of compliance	A letter of compliance from the accountable officer or statutory body to the relevant Minister/s	ARRs – section 7	2
Accessibility	Table of contents Glossary	ARRs – section 9.1	1 115
	Public availability	ARRs – section 9.2	1
	Interpreter service statement	Queensland Government Language Services Policy ARRs – section 9.3	1
	Copyright notice	Copyright Act 1968 ARRs – section 9.4	1
	Information licensing	QGEA – Information Licensing ARRs – section 9.5	N/A
General information	Introductory information	ARRs – section 10	3–6, 21
Non-financial performance	Government’s objectives for the community and whole-of-government plans/specific initiatives	ARRs – section 11.1	17
	Agency objectives and performance indicators	ARRs – section 11.2	17, 24, 44, 49, 56
	Agency service areas and service standards	ARRs – section 11.3	22–23
Financial performance	Summary of financial performance	ARRs – section 12.1	18–20
Governance – management and structure	Organisational structure	ARRs – section 13.1	16
	Executive management	ARRs – section 13.2	12
	Government bodies (statutory bodies and other entities)	ARRs – section 13.3	8–10
	Public Sector Ethics	Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 ARRs – section 13.4	52
	Human Rights	Human Rights Act 2019 ARRs – section 13.5	15
	Queensland public service values	ARRs – section 13.6	5
Governance – risk management and accountability	Risk management	ARRs – section 14.1	11
	Audit committee	ARRs – section 14.2	11
	Internal audit	ARRs – section 14.3	39
	External scrutiny	ARRs – section 14.4	15
	Information systems and recordkeeping	ARRs – section 14.5	53
	Information Security attestation	ARRs – section 14.6	N/A
Governance – human resources	Strategic workforce planning and performance	ARRs – section 15.1	49
	Early retirement, redundancy and retrenchment	Directive No.04/18 Early Retirement, Redundancy and Retrenchment ARRs – section 15.2	N/A
Open data	Statement advising publication of information	ARRs – section 16	57
	Consultancies	ARRs – section 31.1	N/A
	Overseas travel	ARRs – section 31.2	N/A
	Queensland Language Services Policy	ARRs – section 31.3	https://data.qld.gov.au
Financial statements	Certification of financial statements	FAA – section 62 FPMS – sections 38, 39 and 46 ARRs – section 17.1	111
	Independent Auditor’s Report	FAA – section 62 FPMS – section 46 ARRs – section 17.2	112