Criminal legal aid review
Under current government proposals, solicitors are set to receive a 9% increase to criminal legal aid funding – 40% less than the minimum identified as necessary to keep the system functioning.
This page includes information on:
Current stage: consultation
On 15 March, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published its response to Sir Christopher Bellamy’s Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid and launched a consultation on proposed changes to the system, aimed at supporting the system's future and long-term sustainability.
Proposals include:
- increasing legal aid rates, including for police station work and magistrates’ court fees
- changes to fee structures to better reflect the work required on cases
- setting up an advisory board
- making training-contract grants available for criminal practitioners
Justice secretary Dominic Raab told the House of Commons on 22 March that “we matched the Bellamy recommendations on the quantum of investment and on the… uplift for fees”.
After detailed analysis, it has emerged that the total value of the package for solicitors is 9% – not the promised 15% that Sir Christopher recommended as the minimum needed to save the struggling criminal legal aid system.
Although we initially welcomed the fact that government’s proposals echo many of our campaign recommendations and research findings, without this crucial first step of a 15% funding boost, we believe that criminal legal aid will no longer be viable.
We therefore cannot support the current proposals.
Join our fight for a new deal for solicitors, by responding directly to the MoJ.
The consultation ends on 7 June 2022.
During 2021, an independent review, chaired by Sir Christopher Bellamy QC, looked at the fundamental principles of fee schemes for criminal legal aid in the round.
The review published its report on 13 December 2021.
See a breakdown of the key recommendations
Law Society recommendations
The report echoes several recommendations that we’ve made in the past.
It proposes:
- an interim, across-the-board pay increase to be introduced immediately
- an independent advisory board, reporting to the lord chancellor at regular intervals
- applying the same principles used in the magistrates’ court standard fee scheme to other fee schemes in police stations and the Crown Court
The report supports our view that:
- work in police stations, magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court should each be broadly sustainable in its own right …. not dependent on undue cross-subsidy from other work streams” (paragraph 7.33)
- police station work “should be properly rewarded for the time spent when the service is provided”
- more weighting should be introduced “so that experienced lawyers [are] remunerated for dealing with serious cases”
The report rejects the ideas of:
- competitive tendering
- expanding the Public Defender Service – noting that the present system is “sound in concept but suffering from severe underfunding”
Criminal legal aid is not sustainable
In May 2021, we responded to the review's call for evidence, warning that the criminal defence profession could collapse if the government does not increase funding.
Sir Christopher drew together various strands of evidence supporting our view that the criminal justice system is currently not economically sustainable, including that:
- defence pay rates are 30 to 55% below those considered reasonable by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for committals/trials in the magistrates' court
- rates are approximately one third less in real terms than they were 13 years ago
- “structural underfunding of the [criminal justice system] as a whole has made a major contribution to the difficulties” (paragraph 7.13)
- that it’s unlikely “that the returns available to equity holders will enable this sector to be sustainable for much longer, let alone encourage any further investment” (paragraph 6.63)
The review was supported by an expert and advisory panel, to test and challenge its findings and recommendations. The panel was made up of individuals from a range of backgrounds, skills and experience.
In February 2021, the MoJ Criminal Legal Aid Review (CLAR) team published a data compendium which summarises information on publicly funded legal services.
We worked with the MoJ to combine key datasets, along with the Bar Council, the Legal Aid Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The compendium presents a broad overview of the main features of the legal-aid provider base. However, it's likely that more detailed analysis will be carried out in due course.
After launching the review in March 2019, the government fast-tracked certain aspects of existing fee schemes, in response to our lobbying on urgent changes needed to keep the profession sustainable.
The MoJ carried out two consultations on these accelerated areas, looking at how litigators and/or advocates are paid for work on:
- unused material
- paper-heavy cases
- cracked trials in the Crown Court
- sending cases to the Crown Court
- pre-charge engagement
We published our consultation responses on the above in June 2020 and January 2021.
Our view
We gave input into the review in the following areas:
Sustainability
We believe fees must:
- allow firms to recruit and keep new lawyers
- be increased and kept at an adequate level
- reflect the 24-hour service
- enable career progression
- keep the criminal defence profession diverse
Quality
We think there should be:
- incentives for solicitors at the right level of seniority to do the work
- enhanced fees for work in the youth courts
Simplicity
Red tape and administration should be reduced.
Rewarding early work
We believe there should be:
- payment for consideration of disclosure of evidence early in the case
- front loading of Crown Court fees
- fees that better reflect the work required for guilty pleas
- payment for looking at unused material
Fair pay
We think there should be:
- payment for out-of-hours work
- payment for work that is currently unpaid
Future-proofing
Any new fee scheme needs to adapt to changes in technology and changes in:
- police practice
- court and police station consolidation
- case mix
- political priorities
- society
Waste reduction
The cost of avoidable waste in the system, for example as a result of bureaucratic error or lack of preparation, should be borne by the people or agency causing the waste.
Yearly fee reviews
We believe there should be:
- reviews every year, based on data, of whether the fees are properly paying solicitors for the work they do
- fee increases every year in line with inflation
What we're doing
The independent review has proposed a 15% pay increase for criminal legal aid solicitors, following sustained campaigning from the Law Society on behalf of our members.
We continue to press the Ministry of Justice to get the money to our members as soon as possible.
We responded to the independent criminal legal aid review (ICLAR) call for evidence, warning that the criminal defence profession could collapse if the government does not increase funding.
The MoJ Criminal Legal Aid Review (CLAR) team published a data compendium, summarising information on publicly funded legal services.
We worked with the MoJ to combine key datasets, along with the Bar Council, the Legal Aid Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service.
We responded to the MoJ consultation on the fee to be paid to solicitors for ‘pre-charge engagement’ (PCE).
This was the final part of the ‘accelerated items’ brought forward as part of the CLAR.
This could not be included in the consultation earlier in 2020 as the attorney general was consulting on revisions to the Guidelines on Disclosure, which provide the framework for pre-charge engagement. Revised guidelines came into force at the end of 2020.
Read our consultation response (PDF 301 KB)
The MoJ announced that the second phase of the review would be chaired by Sir Christopher Bellamy QC, launching in January with a report expected before the end of 2021.
We welcomed the launch of the next stage of the Criminal Legal Aid Review, however we were clear that government support is needed for criminal legal aid firms to survive, in addition to the structural increase in resources needed for the long-term sustainability of the sector.
In August 2020, the MoJ published its response to the accelerated items consultation.
The MoJ announced that all of the proposals in the consultation paper would go ahead, except that as a result of representations made in our response, the fee for sent cases would be increased from two hours' work to four hours.
Whilst this represented a small injection of much-needed funds into criminal legal aid, it did not go far enough to begin to address the problems faced by criminal legal aid firms and practitioners, all of which have been worsened by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The Ministry of Justice closed this consultation on 17 June 2020.
We voiced concerns that the proposals in this consultation undermined the government’s objectives of improving the functioning of the criminal justice system.
We were disappointed to see that the interim proposals do not go far enough to prevent the crisis in the provision of criminal legal aid to those who need it.
Read our full response (PDF 460 KB)
We also submitted a supplementary response (PDF 173KB), raising concerns about:
- the reduction in the value of the package due to the drop in activity in the system following the coronavirus outbreak
- the even more urgent need for additional support for legal aid solicitors
We were encouraged that the MoJ was considering accelerating some of the urgent changes required to secure the sustainability of the profession.
However, when the MoJ announced more information, we felt the accelerated items would not do enough to secure the short-term sustainability of the profession.
We published details of our concerns as well as information on how members could help make our voice heard.
We had expected an interim set of announcements in November 2019 as part of the accelerated work in the criminal legal aid review.
Due to the December 2019 general election, announcements could not take place in November 2019 as originally expected.
Alongside our criminal justice campaign, the Law Society and others had fed evidence into the review to ensure that our serious concerns about the sustainability of the criminal justice system were understood.
The MoJ accelerated its review work plan of criminal legal aid fees in key areas we lobbied on.
The Ministry of Justice began its review of criminal legal aid fees, which was due to report at the end of 2020.
Resources
Government’s response to Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid
Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid: final report (PDF, 1.09 MB, 165 pages)