Austerity was used as an excuse to ‘over-cut’ the justice budget, the Bar Council has implied, in a report that reveals the shattering consequences of a decade of disinvestment in legal aid.
The report, Justice in the age of austerity, by Professor Martin Chalkley, was launched at a Justice Week event, just days after the Chancellor of the Exchequer cut Ministry of Justice (MoJ) funding by £300m to £6bn per year in his Autumn Budget.
It asserts that a 27% real term cut to MoJ funding in the past ten years is out of step with reductions to other public services, and with a 13% growth in real terms in overall government expenditure.
During the same period, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) funding fell 34% with less spent per prosecution and legal aid funding fell 32%, compared to a 5% fall in education funding, a 6% fall in defence funding, a 25% funding increase in health, a 23% rise in social protection spending and a 10% rise in economic affairs.
Professor Chalkley said: ‘In the last 10 years, the size of the economic “cake” available for public spending has in fact grown.
‘Not only that, the government’s share of that cake has stayed stable at around 40%. Cuts to justice are clearly way out of step with what happened in other areas of public spending.’
Andrew Walker QC, chair of the Bar, said: ‘This research explains the context of the enormous disinvestment in justice over the last ten years, and highlights just how badly justice has been treated in comparison with other areas of government expenditure.
‘Since the financial crash, governments have had to operate under some very real fiscal constraints, but it is clear they have vastly over-cut the justice budget and the public are now feeling the effects.
‘Why has the CPS taken such a hard hit, alongside criminal legal aid? The government is gambling with public safety and the rights of individuals, so it can scrimp on what is already a relatively tiny budget. As disclosure and prosecution failings showed this year, such cuts carry enormous risks.’
