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02 June 2023 / Roger Smith
Issue: 8027 / Categories: Opinion , Legal aid focus
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Civil legal aid: follow the money

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Roger Smith sets out a vision for a national legal aid service—& how we might go about funding it

The Ministry of Justice fared ill under the Osborne-Cameron austerity cuts. As we now enter a new political age—whatever the result of the general election next year—we have to work out a sensible way of going forward from what, frankly, is a mess. This is amply exemplified by the state of civil legal aid.

The cuts’ initial impact, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, would have reduced departmental spending by 40%. In the event, this proved too much even for the most gung ho of treasury ministers. The cuts finally plateaued at around 25%—though not before we got the (now revoked) privatisation of the Probation Service and a chaotic court modernisation programme. We also got the evisceration of civil legal aid through the ill-famed Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

Civil legal aid contributed a pretty exact share to the departmental cuts. Its spending declined from £1.3bn

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