Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the cyber-attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s digital systems on the finances of legal aid firms; how many providers have received (a) partial and (b) emergency contingency payments since that incident; and what additional financial support he plans to provide to firms undertaking legal aid work without payment.

We acknowledge and appreciate the constructive way that providers have worked with us following the serious criminal attack on the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) digital systems. They have continued to do vital work in challenging circumstances.

From the outset the LAA has consulted with providers and provider representative bodies to understand their concerns. These consultations confirmed that maintaining cash flow was a key priority and we immediately took steps to ensure that providers had the cash flow that they needed.

For some types of legal aid this meant adjusting the way in which providers submitted their claim for payment to the LAA. From 19 May, providers have been able to claim their usual payments for Legal Help, Crime Lower & Mediation work via a contingency process. Due to previous investment, the criminal legal aid systems were more modern, and internal access was restored more quickly. This enabled the LAA to resume paying Crown Court bills from early June.

It was necessary to agree a payment contingency for Civil Representation work with HM Treasury. This led to the implementation of the Average Payment Scheme on 27 May. The Average Payment Scheme enables providers to opt in to receive a temporary average payment for Civil Representation work that would otherwise be due. Payments are made on a weekly basis. The weekly average payment is based on previous payments made to that provider over the preceding 3-month period.  Some providers have not opted in to receive payment, but it is there should they need it.

As of 30 November, 2,045 advocates, and 1,206 legal aid provider offices have received payment through the Average Payment Scheme. As payments are calculated as a weekly average there is no scope or need to make a ‘partial’ or ‘emergency’ payment. However, there is, in addition, a simple escalation process in place to enable providers to request a payment in excess of the average amount offered to meet specific expenditure.

We are satisfied that providers have been able to access payment for work carried out whilst systems have been offline.