Legal Aid Minister Lord Bach marked the 60th anniversary of the introduction of legal aid, this week, with a pledge that vulnerable people “most in need” would get the right help at a cost that was fair to practitioners and fair to the taxpayer.
Although the director of the Legal Aid Practitioners’ Group, Carol Storer, welcomed the government’s commitment to the legal aid system she stressed that practitioners were struggling against a tide of change and cutbacks. “However hard they try to absorb changes and deliver more for less,” she says, “there does come a point when the bank balance must overrule the heart”.
