Criminal Proceedings: Legal Aid Scheme

(asked on 2nd November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much money from the public purse was spent on civil legal aid from 1 March 2020 to 31 October 2020.


Answered by
Alex Chalk Portrait
Alex Chalk
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
This question was answered on 5th November 2020

Please note for the figures provided that some firms may have more than one office. There are currently 1,130 firms which hold a Criminal Legal Aid Contract. There are currently 1,466 firms which hold a Civil Legal Aid Contract. This data is correct as at 2 November 2020.

Information on legal aid expenditure is published in the Legal Aid Agency’s National Statistics, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/legal-aid-statistics. At the time of writing, the most recent period for which data has been published covers up to and including March 2020; pre-publication laws preclude us from releasing figures for subsequent months at this time. Figures are also available under the closed claim expenditure measure in the same release with data up to June 2020 available. This provides only the total value of payments made to legal aid providers in relation to pieces of work that are completed in the period, and which could cover wide time periods, but does not include income received or expenditure in relation to debt write-offs.

The Legal Aid Agency frequently reviews market capacity to make sure there is adequate provision around the country and moves quickly to ensure provision where gaps may appear.

Earlier this year we announced an independent review to look at the sustainability of the legal aid market and have introduced changes to inject up £51m per year.

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