The long-awaited Ministry of Justice (MoJ) review of its legal aid cuts has left lawyers largely disappointed.
The post-implementation review of LASPO (the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012), published last week, pledges a further £5m towards technological solutions and £3m to help litigants in person.
However, Richard Atkins QC, Chair of the Bar Council, described this extra £8m as ‘but a drop in the ocean’. LASPO has cut £350m from legal aid funding each year from 2013 and removed hundreds of thousands of people from eligibility for legal aid funding for civil and family matters.
The review notes that fewer publicly funded cases have been brought. In particular, volumes have declined more than anticipated in social welfare law and family cases. It notes that the legal system is not capable of catering for those without legal representation, and that advice deserts are leaving areas without legal aid lawyers.
Another proposal is to raise awareness about access to advice. However, Conservative MP and chair of the Justice Committee Bob Neill QC said: ‘There’s already a desperate lack of capacity in advice centres so in this case it’s hard to see how simply “raising awareness” will help.’
Neill said the pressures across the whole justice system are ‘real and immediate’.
CILEx policy director Simon Garrod criticised the review’s ‘vague promises’.
The review also highlights the importance of early intervention to nip problems in the bud before they spiral, and commits to extending legal aid to special guardianship orders in private family law and to reviewing the legal aid means test.
Jo Edwards, chair of Resolution’s Family Law Group, said the government’s commitments have to be backed up by ‘meaningful funding’.
Family law solicitor and NLJ columnist David Burrows said ministers must recognise the ‘on-cost’ of cuts—‘joined up thinking proposed recently in NLJ by Sir Geoffrey Bindman is basic to legal aid’.
Deborah Coles, director of INQUEST, said the MoJ had ‘failed to confront the reality of the uneven playing field faced by bereaved families’, and called for automatic non-means tested legal aid funding to families following a state-related death.
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