Legal aid statistics: January to March 2020
Activity in the legal aid system for England and Wales, including criminal and civil legal aid, family mediation, providers of legal aid, client characteristics and Central Funds payments.
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The quarterly legal aid statistics bulletin presents statistics on the legal aid scheme administered by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) for England and Wales. This edition comprises the first release of statistics for the three month period from January to March 2020 and also provides the latest statement of figures for all earlier periods. This edition also includes figures on central funds, providers of legal aid, inquests and the diversity of clients receiving legal aid. In addition, provisional figures for April 2020 based on management information are included in the bulletin. These statistics are derived from data held by LAA, produced and published by Legal Aid Statistics team of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).
Statistician’s Comment
Criminal legal aid expenditure has fallen in recent years following a decrease in cases coming through the criminal justice system. Figures published today show a further decrease in Crown Court expenditure compared to the same quarter last year, with litigator spend decreasing at a faster rate than advocate schemes.
This publication shows that overall civil legal aid expenditure continues to be relatively stable, following a sharp decrease in 2014-15. At a scheme level, although total family civil representation continues to gradually increase, the subset of domestic violence or child abuse showed a decrease for the second quarter in succession. Mediation assessments and Exceptional Case Funding continue to show an upward trend, the latter driven by an increase in immigration applications.
Section 9 in the bulletin presents provisional figures for April 2020 based on management information. COVID-19 has led to a considerable downturn in legal aid activity since the January to March 2020 quarter. Criminal legal aid has been particularly affected, with police station workload and court representation down by more than 40%. Mediation assessment and legal help starts also decreased by around a third in April 2020 compared to average monthly figures from the previous quarter.
Pre-release list
Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons:
Ministry of Justice
Secretary of State for Justice, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Courts and Legal Aid, Permanent Secretary, Director of Policy Communications and Analysis Group, Director of Data and Analysis, Deputy Director Legal Aid Policy, Chief Statistician, Private Secretary Permanent Secretary Office, Special Advisor Inbox, Legal Aid Policy Officials (6), Press Officers (3), Private secretaries (5), Legal Aid analyst
Legal Aid Agency
Chief Executive, Chief Executive’s Office, Head of Financial Forecasting, Head of External Communications, Senior External Communications Manager, Director of Finance Business Partnering, Service Development Managers (3)
Last updated 16 July 2020 + show all updates
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HTML version of the bulletin is added
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First published.