The Justice Committee issued a call for evidence this week and is keen to hear from practitioners and clients about their experience. The Committee, chaired by Sir Bob Neill QC MP, aims to look ahead to the next decade of legal aid, and to identify challenges facing clients and providers and how they might be tackled. It is especially keen to hear about the sustainability of the legal aid market, the impact of COVID-19 and the increasing reliance on digital technology to deliver advice and representation.
The inquiry will also look at how LASPO (the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012) has affected access to justice. The Committee previously looked at civil legal aid following LASPO, in 2014, highlighting issues such as the increase in litigants in person and low take-up of the exceptional cases funding scheme. It looked into criminal legal aid in 2018,
The government’s own post-implementation review of LASPO, published in February 2019, concluded that LASPO had been ‘partially successful’ at meeting its four objectives of saving money, targeting legal aid at those who need it most, discouraging unnecessary litigation and delivering better value for money.
Law Society president Simon Davis said there were ‘swathes of the country with no or vanishingly little legal aid provision for issues such as housing and community care, as well as a dwindling number of criminal law solicitors, because the system for so long has been starved of funding.
‘Growing numbers of people are navigating the justice system unrepresented―with no legal advice to help them enforce their rights.’
Submit responses by 5pm on 19 October via: bit.ly/338AOxQ.
