Legal aid statistics: January to March 2021
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.
Applies to England and Wales
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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 2021 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 2021 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).
An interactive version of the tables provided in the legalaidtools app.
Statistician’s Comment
This publication shows that completed workload and the associated expenditure has fallen year on year but has increased over the more recent quarters, due to COVID-19, across the criminal legal aid and civil legal aid schemes.
Criminal legal aid expenditure decreased compared to the same quarter last year in schemes that support the court system, including the magistrates’ and Crown Court. The incoming workload for representation at the courts has almost returned to levels seen in the previous year. Complex trial cases ongoing at the Crown Court are not completing at the same rate as pre-covid due to social distancing measures, and reduced capacity in the courts is impacting upon closed claim expenditure.
Civil legal aid volumes and expenditure show a mixed picture compared to the same quarter last year, but there are increases across some schemes overall since last quarter. Civil representation applications remain slightly lower than last year, and legal help starts and claims remain much lower than last year. Applications for civil representation domestic violence cases have seen the biggest increase since last year, however this is not reflected in the DVCA gateway which remains lower than expected. Mediation workload has increased and now exceeds levels seen previously, and HPCDS volumes are increasing, although they are still well below expected levels.
Section 9 presents provisional figures for April 2021 based on management information. The provisional April 2021 figures show a reversal in the recovery from the impact of COVID-19 in terms of work starting in criminal legal aid, with court representation applications down 15% in the Crown Courts and 8% in magistrates’ courts compared to the average of the previous quarter. Within civil legal aid, both legal help starts and civil representation applications fell in April 2021 compared to the average of the previous quarter.
It was expected that criminal and civil legal aid volumes would return to, and even temporarily exceed, historic trend levels and more recent falls could be due to this return to normal levels or impact from further lockdowns.
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, Permanent Secretary, Director General Chief Financial Officer Group, Director of Data and Analysis, Head of Access to Justice Policy, Deputy Director Legal Aid Policy, Chief Statistician, Special Advisor Inbox, Legal Aid Policy Officials (6), Press Officers (3), Private secretaries (5), Head of Legal Aid Analysis
Legal Aid Agency
Chief Executive, Chief Executive’s Office, Head of Financial Forecasting, Senior External Communications Manager, Director of Finance Business Partnering, Service Development Managers (2), Exceptional and Complex Cases Workflow Co-ordinator, Change Manager