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Improving our service to panel practitioners

We recently restructured our Grants and Quality Assurance (GQA) team to improve our daily responsiveness to private practitioners, clients and help-seekers with queries about legal aid grants.

Published:
Tuesday 17 October 2023 at 5:39 am
Photo of Liz Watt, Ara Tove Hoek and Andrew Musgrave
L-R: Liz Watt, Ara Tove Hoek and Andrew Musgrave

GQA now has four teams: 

  • A new Panels and Practitioner Engagement team which brings together the Panels and Private Practitioner Short Services Scheme functions, and which will also be responsible for communications to and our engagement with panel practitioners, led by a new Manager Liz Watt. 
  • A new Operations Team, which is responsible for day-to-day responsiveness to panel practitioner queries, grants queries and government funding administration, led by Andrew Musgrave.
  • The Quality Assurance team, led by Ara Tove Hoek, which is responsible for our quality assurance function, and ensures clients receive fit for purpose legal services.
  • The Legal Assessments team, led by Rebecca Del Brocco and Christiane Khalil, which administers our Legal Aid Fund, and now has a new sub-team for major criminal cases.

Director, Legal Practice, Dianna Gleeson said the new structure will provide many benefits for our panel practitioners and community legal centre partners, who provide around 85 per cent of legally aided work to the community.

‘In 2022–23, we approved 41,320 grants of aid to panel practitioners and facilitated the delivery of more than $120 million worth of services to clients, comprising grants of $114 million and Private Practitioner Duty Lawyer Scheme work of $6 million.

‘Our new structure will improve our daily responsiveness to our partners, clients and helpseekers who have questions about a grant of legal aid.

‘It will also help us upskill, train and support grants decision-makers, improve decision-making turnaround times on grant applications and increase our capacity in the quality assurance function, which will assist client service delivery.’

We have recruited additional staff for the teams, including grants services officers, a grants assessor, and compliance and quality assurance staff.

‘We look forward to our new structure improving phone and email responsiveness to panel practitioners, assisting clients and positively impacting our grants decision making turnaround times,’ said Dianna.

More information

For more information about grants of legal assistance and to find out how to contact grants, see Grants enquiries.

If you have any questions about the restructure, email Associate Director Emma Hunt at Emma.Hunt@vla.vic.gov.au or Associate Director Renee Blight-Clark at Renee.BlightClark@vla.vic.gov.au  

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