We have published our response to the MOJ’s civil legal aid fees consultation: Civil legal aid: Towards a sustainable future

The MOJ consultation is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/civil-legal-aid-towards-a-sustainable-future/civil-legal-aid-towards-a-sustainable-future

We welcome the proposals to increase Immigration & Asylum and Housing & Debt fees and would like to see these changes implemented as soon as possible. As the MOJ has stated that this is just the first step for building a sustainable civil legal aid system we urge them to work at pace to introduce further reforms.

Our key recommendations for further reform, outlined in detail in our consultation response are:

  • Introduce the proposed increases in I&A and H&D rates as soon as possible.
  • Introduce increased rates in all areas of civil legal aid as soon as possible.
  • Introduce a mechanism for regularly reviewing rates to ensure they are uprated in line with increases in the cost of delivering legal aid services. Never again should providers be expected to work at rates that are not commercially viable.
  • Reform the fee schemes to enable all providers to claim their reasonably incurred costs on a regular basis and introduce a process for all categories that enables providers to claim disbursements as and when they are incurred.
  • Consider further harmonisation of rates to continue the process of simplifying the fee schemes and to reflect the high degree of expertise required to deliver all types of legal aid work.
  • Gather robust data on an ongoing basis about the costs of delivering legal aid services to inform the regular review of legal aid fees.
  • Continue to refine the principles that inform decision-making on civil legal aid fees to encompass the MOJ’s statutory responsibility to ensure there is a sustainable supply of legal aid services that can meet an empirically measured assessment of legal demand.
  • Develop a Legal Aid Workforce Strategy to deliver on the MOJ’s responsibility towards those who deliver legal aid which, at least in the short- to medium-term, accepts that the MOJ will need to introduce specific interventions, in addition to fee increases, to nurse the workforce back to health.
  • Reduce both the administrative burdens and compliance risks that inhibit providers’ ability to run viable organisations.
  • Where administrative burdens cannot be sensibly reduced (because, for example, there are specific legal or auditing requirements related to the allocation and use of public funds) ensure that the time and costs generated by those burdens are factored into legal aid fees.
  • Amend cost assessment guidance to enable providers to claim for all tasks (including tasks carried out by non-fee earners) that are carried out as a specific requirement of their legal aid contract.
  • Reduce or remove all situations where providers are expected to work at risk.
  • Introduce a blanket exemption for publicly-funded cases from the Fixed Recoverable Costs regime.
  • Apply the enhancement system to all levels of legal aid work to recognise that work requiring exceptional expertise and skill is carried out across the scheme.
  • Carry out extensive and robust research about the merits or otherwise of reducing or removing contractual limits on remote applications and requirements for permanent office locations before formulating any policy proposals. These potential policy interventions should not be conflated with, or used as a justification for, diluting access to face-to-face services for clients who need to obtain in-person legal advice and assistance.
  • Whist carrying out the research noted above, develop and implement a strategy to encourage providers to deliver face-to-face services in all recognised areas of low provision to ensure that both in-person and remote access to services are realistic options for clients. The LAA will need to develop a more sophisticated ‘capacity assessment’ process to make this possible.
  • Re-establish a research centre with responsibility for obtaining and analysing data about, inter alia, unmet legal need, the drivers of legal need, public legal capability (particularly in relation to accessing online services), the impact of legal aid services and the sustainability of the legal aid provider base.
  • Explore the merits of introducing a ‘high trust model’, whereby oversight and auditing is proportionate to each provider’s track-record of quality and compliance.

Download our full response here (PDF, 1MB)