Legal Aid Scheme

(asked on 2nd February 2015) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) children under 18 and (b) 18 to 24 year olds have applied for legal aid under the Exceptional Case Funding Scheme in (i) 2013-14 and (ii) 2014-15 to date.


Answered by
Mike Penning Portrait
Mike Penning
This question was answered on 5th February 2015

Figures presented are taken from published legal aid statistics or more detailed breakdowns where necessary. The age groupings provided are taken from the statistical reporting currently produced and are the latest figures available.

Table 1: Age of client for Legal Help and Civil Representation covering family, immigration and social welfare outcomes, 2010/11 to 2013/14

Financial Year

Age Band

Family

Immigration

Social Welfare

2010-11

18 and under

24,035

13,192

3,716

19-25

61,027

28,320

39,469

2011-12

18 and under

27,431

8,222

3,075

19-25

61,181

18,141

33,581

2012-13

18 and under

30,227

5,252

2,567

19-25

57,143

14,818

26,406

2013-14

18 and under

36,703

4,159

1,477

19-25

44,561

11,812

11,530

Figures covering prison law outcomes are not available from the administrative system as applicant dates of birth are not systematically recorded against Legal Aid cases.

Table 2: Age of client in all legal aid scheme outcomes for 2012/13 and 2013/14

Financial Year

18 and under

19-25

2012-13

97,078

244,453

2013-14

92,965

204,641

The full official published statistics are available since 2012/13 and can be found here https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/322449/clients.csv. Corresponding figures for 2011/12 are not available across all areas of law.

These published figures suppress values where low volumes may allow identification of the client alongside further attributes released in the same data extract including ethnicity, gender and disability status.

The information requested on Exceptional Case Funding applicants is supplied in the table below:

Table 3: Age of applicant ECF Oct 2013 to Sep 2014

Under 18

18 to 24

Oct 2013 to Mar 2014

36

56

Apr 2014 to Sep 2014

14

39

Please note: Age data for Exceptional Case Funding applicants was collected from October 2013 onwards. The latest available published data is to September 2014 and the figures supplied show each individual applicant only once.

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