Legal Aid review proposals unveiled

Lord Falconer, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Vera Baird QC MP, Legal Aid Minister, have set out "market" reforms to legal aid provision in England and Wales.

'Legal Aid Reform: The Way Ahead' published jointly by the DCA and the Legal Services Commission (LSC) follows on from consultation on the Carter report made over the summer. The report sought to trim £100 million from the legal aid budget and move to a more market-based system involving tendering.

Lord Falconer said: "Our vision is of a legal aid system that continues to provide high quality advice while remaining financially sustainable and fit for the demands and challenges of the 21st century.

"The legal aid system is one of the pillars of the welfare state. It provides access to justice for those who otherwise could not afford it. All of us who work in legal aid recognise this. But we also recognise that it must be sustainable and fair to the taxpayer.

"We said we needed a fairer deal for legal aid which would be fair to the vulnerable, fair to taxpayers, fair to defendants and fair to practitioners. These reforms will deliver that."

Legal Aid Minister Vera Baird said: "Our reforms will safeguard access to justice for the socially excluded and vulnerable, with the aim of re-balancing towards a greater provision of legal aid for civil law advising those most in need, for example on housing, debt and employment rights.

"We aren't making cuts to civil or family legal aid, we are maintaining expenditure on it. But we do need to encourage greater and more consistent efficiency.

"The reforms are centred on a sustainable market-based approach that gives the most efficient providers incentives to continue in operation and grow their businesses. We believe that there are real opportunities here for the professions.

"One of our main aims will be to engage our partners in the criminal justice system to ensure that we tackle those issues - local and national - which place unnecessary cost on providers and hence on the legal aid budget."

Changes include introducing:

• Fixed fees for work in police stations from October 2007 as an interim measure, prior to the introduction of best value tendering on an area basis from October 2008;
• Revised standard fees for magistrates' court work will be introduced in major urban areas from April 2007, prior to moving to best value tendering for this work by October 2008;
• A revised graduated fees scheme for advocates in the Crown Court from April 2007;
• A litigators graduated fees for Crown Court work from October 2007;
• A single graduated fee scheme in October 2008, which will combine fees for both Crown Court litigators and advocates;

Lord Carter has welcomed the government's support for the proposals published in July.

The changes, implemented to constrain the galloping legal aid budget, are expected to strip £100 million from the £2.1 billion spent on legal aid.

Solicitor's representative bodies have criticised the proposals claiming that hundreds of smaller law firms will be forced to close.

(SP/KMcA)