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Accredited official statistics

Legal aid statistics England and Wales bulletin Jan to Mar 2026

Published 25 June 2026

Applies to England and Wales

© Crown copyright 2026

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2026/legal-aid-statistics-england-and-wales-bulletin-jan-to-mar-2026

The widely reported cyber-attack on LAA systems which occurred in May 2025 has impacted data collection across all schemes. We recognise that there are gaps for some series at present and are now in a position where we can extend the following continuous series; these extensions continue the official statistics series and will not substantially change; our aim is to add those series that are unavailable currently to future releases.

Continuous series Crime representation orders, Litigator fee scheme, Advocate fee scheme,
Central Funds, Higher Courts, Crime Lower, Legal Help completions, Mediation outcomes,
Exceptional case funding and Civil Representation
Currently unavailable Criminal high cost claims, legal help starts and mediation starts

The LAA put in place contingency plans to ensure that those in need of legal support could access the help that they required and those providing legal services continued to receive payments whilst systems were offline. Further information on contingency payments can be found on the LAA’s dedicated cyber security incident webpage.

Main points
Representation orders granted in magistrates’ court increased by 10% while Crown Court decreased by 3% when compared to the same period in 2025. ⬈ The early indicators for court workload and eventual legal aid payments show increasing trends across the two courts.
In the magistrates’ court the volume of completed work increased by 5% and associated expenditure increased by 13% when compared to the same period last year. ⬈ At the police station, the volume of work increased by 3% with expenditure increasing by 31% with some of this increase attributable to backlogs finalised in the final quarter.
Overall Crown Court expenditure was 2% lower this quarter compared with the same period of the previous year ⬊ The criminal legal aid workload remained broadly the same as in January to March 2025 as the most recent quarter does not currently include high cost criminal claims.
Civil closed case expenditure increased by 58% this quarter compared to January to March 2025 ⬈ This is driven by civil representation claims being entered onto the system only since December and the backlog from the cyber-attack.
The number of Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings increased by 2% compared with the same quarter of 2025. ⬈ Mediation outcomes increased by 8% compared with January to March 2025.
Applications for civil representation supported by evidence of domestic violence or child abuse increased by 6%.   The volume of these granted increased by 9% compared to the same period of 2025. The proportion granted is 86% the same as the prior year.
884 applications for Exceptional Case Funding were received in the last quarter. ⬊ This is an 8% decrease from the same quarter last year. This is driven by a decrease in the immigration category which fell by 16%.
Over the past year, the number of providers receiving payment for civil legal aid decreased by 15%. For criminal legal aid, the number of providers receiving payment was unchanged. ⬊ The number of providers with civil work completed was lower than previously due to the backlog created from the cyber-attack not being fully processed yet.

This edition comprises the first release of official statistics for the three-month period from January to March 2026 and the latest statement of all figures for previous periods.

It also includes commentary and statistics on providers of legal aid, Central Funds and diversity in legal aid.

For technical detail, please refer to our user guide for these statistics.

Statistician’s comment

Given that all completion data for every scheme (except criminal high cost claims) is now being released, we have not published the contingency payments management information for this quarter.

While figures have been released for civil representation, the system backlog and restart date in December 2025 does mean that data in this area shows a large spike in starts, grants and completions. It is anticipated that this backlog and temporary increase in workload and expenditure will return nearer to normality within a few quarters.

At the Crown Court, the relatively unchanged workload during the period of contingency following the cyber-attack has shown the prioritisation of these claims and payments made. After the initial fall in the first two quarters of 2025, payments are recovering and the shortfall for the third quarter and most recent quarters shows a scheme that has returned to its initial state, with small falls seen in both fee schemes only.

Figures covering legal help, mediation and crime lower are provided for the first time since the annual release last year. These figures are from the new data collection system and also include data submitted from the months during the cyber-attack impact. Figures are broadly in line with the previous year across all three schemes.

Annual figures released on diversity of clients show little change compared with last year in the types of clients based on their age, gender, ethnicity and disability. The volume of providers has also shown little change in Crime over the previous year. A fall in civil providers is not unexpected with the lack of completions in the first two quarters and the backlog seen in civil representation.

Things you need to know

We publish a number of resources alongside the quarterly statistical bulletin. You will see the phrases below at the start of each chapter with a link to the relevant resource:

Data visualisation tool Help Tables
Use our data visualisation tools to view and customise charts and tables See our user guide for definitions and information about our data sources Download our data tables for the entire period

To understand trends in legal aid as a whole, it is best to begin by looking at annual expenditure figures and then look at trends in both workload and expenditure for each category of legal aid. Summarising workload activity across the whole legal aid system meaningfully within a single number is difficult because of the diversity of services included and different stages in delivery. For example, legal aid work can be measured at the point when an order for legal aid is granted, or after all the legal aid work is completed and the provider has been paid. Expenditure on legal aid is measured differently for different purposes. The three most commonly used measures, shown in Figure 1, are:

  • Closed-case expenditure is the measure used for expenditure figures throughout these legal aid statistics. It represents the total value of payments made to legal aid providers in relation to pieces of work that are completed in the period. This basis is comparable to volumes of completed work to which it relates, and to the same fine level of detail. This does not include income received or expenditure in relation to debt write-offs.

  • RDEL (Resource Departmental Expenditure Limits) nominal is the main budgeting measure used by government to control current spending, both to set budgets for future years and report on how much has been spent. It represents the value of work carried out in the period better than the closed-case measure but cannot be broken down to such a fine level of detail. This measure does incorporate income and expenditure in relation to debt. ‘Nominal’ here means not adjusted for inflation.

  • RDEL real is the RDEL measure adjusted for inflation to make the value of spending in previous years directly comparable with the specified year. These measures show a large reduction in legal aid expenditure from around 2010-11, mostly due to changes to the scope of civil legal aid introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act from 2013-14, as well as reductions in criminal legal aid workloads and fees payable to legal aid providers.

See interactive breakdown here.

Data visualisation tool Help Tables

In the magistrates’ court the volume of completed work increased by 5% and associated expenditure increased by 13% when compared to the same period last year

Meanwhile, at the police station, the volume of work increased by 3% with a 31% increase in corresponding expenditure. In crime lower these are driven by the introduction of a new system for the collection of data and previous work being included in the most recent quarter and a rise in the fees during this period.

Criminal legal aid can be categorised into Crime Lower and Crime Higher. Crime Lower (covered in our data visualisation tool) includes police station advice, magistrates’ court and prison law. Meanwhile, Crime Higher (also covered in our data visualisation tool) relates to work in the Crown and Higher Courts.

Figure 2: Crime overview, closed case volumes and expenditure for January to March 2026 compared with January to March 2025

Crime overview Workload Expenditure
Crime 304,625 (2%⬈) £278.8m (1%⬈)
Crime Lower 260,081 (3%⬈) £104.0m (22%⬈)
Crown Court 44,544 -(4%⬊) £174.8m (-8%⬊)
Crime Lower category Workload Expenditure
Advice & Assistance on Appeals 170 (43%⬈) £ 0.5m (37%⬈)
Civil work associated with crime cases 73 (284%⬈) £ <0.1m (212%⬈)
Magistrates court representation 77,295 (5%⬈) £ 38.5m (13%⬈)
Police Station Advice 178,734 (3%⬈) £ 60.4m (31%⬈)
Prison Law 3,809 (-13%⬊) £ 4.7m (-5%⬊)
Crown Court category Workload Expenditure
Advocate Graduated Fee Scheme 23,282 (1%⬈) £ 71.5m (<1%⬊)
High Cost Crime N/A N/A
Litigator Graduated Fee Scheme 21,261 (-8%⬊) £104.4m (-9%⬊)

See interactive breakdown here.

Although Crown Court work comprises a relatively small portion of criminal legal aid in terms of volume, it accounts for around two thirds of all criminal legal aid expenditure. Conversely, advice relating to the police station makes up around two thirds of workload, but only around a half of expenditure.

See interactive breakdown of crime trend and crime lower.

Advice and assistance on appeals and civil work associated with crime are excluded from these figures. See interactive breakdown of crime trend and crime lower.

Police station advice

This category made up 69% of the Crime Lower workload between January and March 2026 but only 58% of the expenditure. The workload in this period increased by 3% compared to the previous year, with expenditure increasing by 31% (£14.3m) to its highest level (£46m). This is driven by the introduction of a new system for the collection of data and previous work being included in the most recent quarter alongside a rise in the fixed fees paid during this period.

The majority of the police station advice workload (90% in January and March 2026) consists of suspects receiving legal help with a solicitor in attendance at the police station, with the rest mainly consisting of legal advice over the telephone.

Applications and grants for representation in the criminal courts

These figures should be interpreted with caution as they may be revised in subsequent quarters as cases move into the Crown Court. Figures for the first half of 2025-26 were lower than usual due to the cyber-attack and a loss of access to systems.

The number of orders granted for legally-aided representation in the magistrates’ court increased by 10% this quarter compared to the same quarter of the previous year. This is partially due to claims from the backlog created during the cyber-attack being entered in more recent periods rather than between July and September 2025.

Orders granted for legally-aided representation in the Crown Court decreased by 3% this quarter compared to last year. Within the legal aid figure, orders relating to either-way offences decreased by 4%, while those relating to indictable offences increased by 1%. The proportion of Crown Court applications granted remains at almost 100%.

Magistrates’ court completed work

Legally-aided representation in the magistrates’ court comprised lees than a quarter of the workload and around two fifths (40%) of expenditure in Crime Lower between January and March 2026. The volume of completed work (covered in this report) increased by 5% this quarter when compared to the same period of the previous year. Expenditure also increased by 13% (£4.5m).

These figures incorporate the accelerated Criminal legal aid reforms which cover payment for work on sending cases to the Crown Court. This category shown in the tables accompanying this bulletin had 12,253 completed claims costing around £3.4m this quarter. Assigned counsel claim figures for 2025-26 are currently awaited with partial figures only available.

Crown Court completed work

Completed work volumes within the litigator (solicitor) fee scheme decreased by 8% in January to March 2026 compared to the same period of the previous year and in the advocate fee scheme, completed claims increased by 1% compared to the same period last year.

Figure 5: Workload in the Crown Court, April to June 2016 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

In the litigator fee scheme, expenditure decreased by 9% in January to March 2026 compared to the same period of the previous year. However, in the advocate fee scheme, the value of payments was unchanged also compared to the same period of the previous year. Figures for expenditure on work completed in the Crown Court should be interpreted with caution as they may be revised in subsequent quarters as claims are assessed further on appeal and further payments added to the value of some completed claims.

The Very High-Cost Case (VHCC) scheme covers those Crown Court cases which would likely last more than 60 days if they were to proceed to trial. Such cases can span several years and, while they may involve small numbers of defendants, the associated expenditure is high in comparison. Due to the cyber-attack, figures on a closed case basis are not available. There was £6.9m of expenditure during the same period across all ongoing claims within the VHCC scheme.

Figure 6: Expenditure in the Crown Court, April to June 2016 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

The large falls in completed expenditure in 2020-21 are a consequence of fewer jury trials completing in the Crown Court. Figure 7 below, looking at the litigator fee scheme only, but true of both schemes, shows the impact of falling trials on expenditure. These types of cases are particularly affected, because they need more courtroom space. Trial completed expenditure was more adversely affected than guilty pleas and cracked trials (where, for legal aid this differs from the HMCTS definition, it is where a defendant changes their plea before the trial date), with litigator fee expenditure much lower.

Figure 7: Litigator Fee Scheme Crown Court expenditure by claim type, April to June 2016 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

Prison Law

Workload this quarter decreased by 13% compared with the same period in the previous year. This is driven by free standing advice and assistance which decreased by 23%, compared to January to March 2025.

Conversely, advocacy assistance at prison discipline hearings increased by 8% compared to last year. (see Figure 8). Advocacy at parole board hearings currently makes up around a half (44%) of prison law workload, but a much larger proportion of costs (81%), so expenditure on prison law overall decreased by 5% over this period.

Figure 8: Prison Law completed workload, April to June 2016 to January to March 2026*

Figure 9: Prison Law completed expenditure, April to June 2016 to January to March 2026*

*New categories with small volumes, less than 50, are not shown: ‘advocacy assistance at sentence reviews’ and ‘advocacy assistance at Parole Board reconsideration hearings’.

Central Funds

In 2025-26 the total expenditure for Central Funds was £67.5m, a 10% increase compared with the previous year.

This area includes arrangements to meet costs in a variety of scenarios that are not covered by the main criminal legal aid schemes. Some aspects of these are administered by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) and others by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. In 2025-26, the total expenditure for Central Funds was £67.5m. This is a 10% increase compared with the previous year and reflects a levelling off in the volume of court hearings during the financial year.

Figure 10: Central Funds expenditure, 2016-17 to 2025-26

*Other includes intermediaries, private prosecutions and costs of attending magistrates’ court for witnesses, the qualified legal representative scheme, experts and defendants. See interactive breakdown here.

A large category of expenditure (£7.2m in 2025-26) relates to the reimbursement of defendants who have been acquitted after privately funding their defence lawyers. The process for assessing and authorising reimbursement of costs from central funds in this scenario is normally triggered when a judge grants a Defence Cost Order (DCO) for legal aid at magistrates’, Crown or higher courts.

Another sizeable area of Central Funds expenditure (£17.7m in 2025-26) covers the costs of lawyers required where a defendant is unrepresented but where the court decides that the defendant must not themselves be allowed to cross-examine a vulnerable witness, with cases involving domestic violence being typical. This situation is covered by the terms of section 38 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. The costs of interpreters and translators in court comprise another area of Central Funds expenditure (£19.6m in 2025-26). The remainder of Central Funds expenditure goes to meet the costs of court intermediaries (£12.9m in 2025-26) ), the qualified legal representative scheme (£2.5m in 2024-25), successful private prosecutions (£4m in 2025-26) and towards meeting some of the reasonable costs of attending magistrates’ court for witnesses, experts and defendants (£1.6m in 2025-26).

Data visualisation tool Help Tables

The number of certificates completed increased by 25%, and the associated expenditure increased by 58% over the same period.

This is driven by civil representation claims being entered onto the system only since December and the backlog from the cyber-attack falling into the two most recent quarters only.

Civil legal aid can be categorised by area of law into family and non-family. The category of family legal aid covers all work on both private and public family law and includes work associated with the Children Act, domestic abuse, financial provision and family mediation. Non-family legal aid encompasses all work related to immigration, mental health, housing and other non-family law.

Figure 11: Civil overview, closed case volumes and expenditure for January to March 2026, and comparison with January to March 2025

Civil overview Workload Expenditure
Civil 97,932 (25%⬈) £420.4m (58%⬈)
Family (no Mediation) 50,975 (59%⬈) £356.8m (68%⬈)
Non-Family 41,198 (2%⬈) £ 61.8m (19%⬈)
Family category Workload Expenditure
Family Public 34,556 (71%⬈) £282.2m (73%⬈)
Family Private 16,419 (38%⬈) £ 74.6m (49%⬈)
Mediation and MIAMS* 5,758 (4%⬈) £ 1.9m (10%⬈)
Non-Family category Workload Expenditure
Immigration 17,815 (3%⬈) £ 16.8m (9%⬈)
Mental Health 8,896 (2%⬈) £ 15.1m (20%⬈)
Housing 9,199 (-3%⬊) £ 8.2m (15%⬈)
Other Non-Family 5,288 (5%⬈) £ 21.6m (31%⬈)

*Mediation and MIAMS are not included in the Family total.

See interactive breakdown here.

Although the workload for family and non-family cases is similar, comprising 50,975 and 41,198 cases in January to March 2026 respectively, non-family cases make up only around a fifth of total civil legal aid expenditure (15%). Public family legal aid makes up around two fifths (40%) of family legal aid work and around a half (46%) of expenditure.

In the last quarter, the volume of completed claims increased by 5% and expenditure increased by 7% in January to March 2026 compared to the same period in 2025 (Figure 12).

The implementation of the LASPO Act in April 2013 resulted in large reductions in legal help and workload now sits at less than one-quarter of pre-LASPO levels.

See interactive breakdown here.

See interactive breakdown here.

There was a steep decline in family legal help immediately following the implementation of LASPO Act in April 2013, with a more gradual decline over the last 6 years. Family mediation involves an independent and impartial professionally-accredited mediator discussing problems with a divorcing or separating couple. A Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAMs) is an initial meeting between one or both parties and a mediator to see if family mediation could be used to reach agreement without using the courts. The volume of MIAMs increased by 2% in the last quarter compared to the previous year and family mediation outcomes increased by 8% and are now sitting at around half of pre-LASPO levels. Figures for mediation starts are not currently available.

Figure 14: Family mediation assessments, starts and agreements, April to June 2017 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

Controlled legal representation relates to representation at tribunal, but unlike civil representation, the decision on whether to grant legal aid is delegated to providers.

The LASPO Act 2012 made changes to the scope of legal aid for immigration law, but some areas remained in scope. Workload that remains in the immigration category consists largely of asylum-related work. Completed claims in immigration increased by 4% in the last quarter compared to the previous year and expenditure increased by 12%. Figures for new matter starts are currently unavailable.

Within mental health, most funding is spent on providing assistance to sectioned clients appealing the terms of their detention before a mental health tribunal. Completed claims also decreased by 1% and expenditure decreased by 2% over the same period.

Around two thirds (65%) of legal aid housing work volume is made up of legal help. The volume of legally-aided housing work halved between July to September 2012 and July to September 2013 following LASPO.

Housing advice

Claims for in court work under both Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service (HLPAS) which replaced the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme (HPCDS) in August 2023 and the previous scheme are now shown in table 1.2. Figures for early housing advice are shown alongside the legal help housing advice found in the 5.1/2/3 series of tables.

There were 9,163 in court claims completed in this quarter under the HLPAS with the expenditure being £1.26m. This compares, as expected, with 8,861 from the previous quarter when combining HLPAS and the remaining HPCDS work with a cost of £0.86m. The new HLPAS early advice service had 1,223 claims with expenditure of £284k.

Figures covering the recently introduced Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service and breakdowns within this area are available in the underlying data accompanying this report.

Civil representation

Figures within civil representation are currently inflated due to claims being entered onto the system only since December and the backlog from the cyber-attack. It is anticipated that this backlog and temporary spike in workload and expenditure will return nearer to pre cyber-attack levels within a few quarters.

The number of civil representation certificates granted in the last quarter increased by 88% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of certificates completed increased by 58%, and the associated expenditure increased by 64% over the same period.

At a cost of around £387.2m in January to March 2026, total civil representation expenditure, where it was met by the LAA, is the highest it has been since 2011-12. This large spike in payments though relate to work across the whole of 2025-26 with completions only being entered onto the system during December to March 2026.

Figure 15: Completed workload in civil representation, April to June 2017 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

Figure 16: Completed workload expenditure in civil representation, April to June 2017 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

Non-Family Civil Representation

Non-family certificates completed make up 9% of the total civil representation workload and 9% of the expenditure. There are only a small number of immigration and mental health cases in civil representation as most work in these areas consists of controlled legal representation. A large proportion of certificates completed in this category are for housing work. There has been a gradual decline in housing certificates completed and expenditure since 2014. Although in the latest period, completed certificates increased by 83% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Family civil representation

Certificates granted for family work increased by 85% in January to March 2026 compared to the previous year. Certificates completed increased by 65% and associated expenditure has increased by 68% compared to the same quarter the previous year.

While civil representation for public family law remains available, the LASPO Act removed legal aid for most private family law including issues such as contact or divorce. However, legal aid remains available for such cases where there is a risk of domestic violence or child abuse. In January to March 2026, certificates completed for domestic violence increased by 27% compared to the same period of the previous year.

In January to March 2026, applications for civil representation supported by evidence of domestic violence or child abuse increased by 6% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of certificates granted via the domestic violence and child abuse gateway increased by 9% over the same period. The proportion of applications granted remained steady at around 70% from the inception of this type of application until the end of 2015, before increasing to around 80%. The provisional figure for the latest quarter is 86%.

Figure 17: Applications received and total certificates granted via the domestic violence and child abuse gateway, April to June 2017 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

Judicial reviews

Of all civil representation applications granted, 1,377 in the latest quarter related to a judicial review. The number granted in January to March 2026 increased by 115% compared with the same quarter in 2025. Around a half of judicial reviews were for public law. Judicial review data is available in the detailed CSV file accompanying this bulletin.

Exceptional Case Funding (ECF)

The Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) scheme was introduced as part of LASPO. An ECF application for civil legal services is made where a case falls outside the scope of civil legal aid but the client or conducting solicitor believes failure to provide funding would be a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998.

There were 884 applications for ECF received from January to March 2026. This is an 8% decrease from the same quarter last year. 826 (93%) of these were new applications.

Of the 884 ECF applications received between January and March 2026, 87% (768) had been determined by the LAA as of 01 May 2026. 77% (593) of these were granted, 12% (89) were refused and 10% (73) rejected (see Figure 19).

Figure 18: Volume of ECF applications received, April to June 2018 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

Among the ECF applications received between January and March 2026, immigration (58%), inquest (12%), and family (14%) remained the most requested categories of law. The increase in ECF applications over the last four years is driven by an increase in immigration applications.

Figure 19: Proportion of ECF determinations by outcome, April to June 2018 to January to March 2026

See interactive breakdown here.

Client diversity

In general, the proportions of legal aid work by sex, disability status, ethnicity and age band of the client in 2025-26 are consistent with 2024-25.

A diversity data file and dashboard are published alongside this year-end bulletin. This breaks down legal aid work by the sex, disability status, ethnicity and age band of the client and, for criminal legal aid, the applicant. In this chapter, this data is compared with mid-year population estimates and 2021 census data from the Office for National Statistics. More detail on disclosure control, methodology and data quality can be found in the User Guide to legal aid statistics. In general, the diversity of legal aid clients compared to 2024-25 is unchanged. This stability in proportions over time can be seen in Table 11.1.

Please note that figures are no longer routinely collected for applicants who apply for legal aid and this is the only source of gender statistics available for the higher courts. Therefore the volume of unknown values makes this scheme unavailable for gender, ethnicity and disability.

Sex

The profile of criminal legal aid clients in 2025-26 is consistent with the population average with a greater proportion of males in the former (Figure 20). This reflects the picture across the criminal justice system as a whole and is consistent over time. However, the proportion of females varies with the type of work being claimed for. In 2025-26, 11% of magistrates’ court representation work and 17% of police station advice involved females whereas, only 3% of prison law work was for females.

*Crime higher figures are based solely on MAAT and since the introduction of Crime Apply information on gender, ethnicity and disability has not been collected.

The profile of civil legal aid clients in 2025-26 more closely matches the general population, with some variation by scheme. There is a greater proportion of female clients in Civil Representation (54%), and a slightly smaller proportion in Mediation (51%), ECF (46%) and Legal Help (35%). The proportion of female legal help clients decreased by9 percentage points since 2016-17, driven mainly by immigration where the proportion of females has decreased from around a fifth to around a fifth. Within the housing possession court duty scheme, clients broadly match the general population. Overall, the proportions of male and female civil representation clients have remained level over the last few years. Within civil representation, the proportion of males in the domestic violence category has fallen from 7% in 2016-17, to 5% in 2025-26.

Disability

It is difficult to draw firm conclusions for most categories of legal aid on this characteristic because of the relatively high proportion of unknowns.

Figures show that a higher proportion of legal help clients have disabilities (25%) than the general population (18%), although this difference is likely to be larger due to the high proportion of unknowns. This may be partly because mental health controlled legal representation work is included within legal help. In 2025-26 around two fifths of the legal help closed case mental health work claims had the client recorded as having a mental health condition. Mediation while having a comparatively low proportion of unknowns has a lower proportion of clients who are disabled (8%) than the population average.

Ethnicity

It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from some of the ethnicity data because of the high proportion for which ethnicity is unknown in most areas. Nevertheless, the proportion of legal help and ECF clients reporting as Black/Asian/Minority Ethnic is much larger than in the general population (Figure 21). This may reflect the fact that controlled legal representation (CLR) for immigration is included within legal help and the majority of ECF grants are for immigration work.

Age

Generally, the age profile of legal aid clients is much less evenly spread than the population average, with a higher proportion of working age clients and a smaller proportion of over 55s. A much greater proportion of criminal legal aid clients are from young adult age groups than in the general population. Crime Higher has the greatest relative proportion of clients under the age of 18, who make up less than a tenth of work completed in 2025-26. Within this, other public law children act proceedings and special children act proceedings both had high proportions of clients under 18; 69% and 48% respectively in 2025-26. The overall age profile of clients in 2025-26 is similar to previous years, although there has been an increase in the proportion of those under 18 in civil representation, increasing by 33% in 2016-17 to 34% in 2025-26.

Over the last 5 years there has been a decrease in the number of provider offices completing legal aid work. Meanwhile, over the last year, there has been no real change in the number of criminal provider offices completing legal aid work.

Over the past year, the number of providers that have received payment for civil work decreased by 15%; this is due to the backlog created from the cyber-attack not being fully processed and so completions not yet being finalised on the system.

Legal aid services in England and Wales are delivered through solicitor firms, Not-for-profit organisations, telephone operators and barristers, most of whom are contracted by the LAA to do legal aid work. This chapter presents the number of providers who have completed work and received associated payments from the LAA in any given quarter or financial year.

A set of provider data files and dashboard is published alongside this year-end bulletin. A provider may consist of a large firm with several offices around the country or a single office location at which one or more individuals are based. For more information on data sources, quality and usage please see the User guide to legal aid statistics. The timing with which a completed piece of work and the total payment, or expenditure, associated with it are reported are based on the point at which the main final payment for that piece of work was authorised by the LAA, not the timing of cash transactions.

Figures for a given period may include the value of work conducted in earlier periods and the expenditure represents the total legal aid fee payments for each item of completed work. These figures are not equivalent to providers’ profits, earnings or take-home pay. Figures are based on the provider office location and not the location of the client. A provider may serve clients from other geographic areas as well as that in which the office is located. As this data reflects only the location of the provider office it cannot be used as a reliable indicator of the distribution of the clients or benefits of legal aid, or to infer a precise picture of coverage of legal aid services.

Volume of providers completing work

Across civil legal aid, the number of provider offices completing work decreased by 16% over the last 5 years, and there was a 15% decrease in offices completing work over the most recent year. There was a more gradual downward trend for criminal work, although with the last year there was a 5% increase in the number of provider offices over the last 5 years and no change over the last year.

See interactive breakdown here.

See interactive breakdown here.

Data visualisation tool Help Tables

At the start of March 2026, there were 2,015 providers and 3,327 offices contracted to deliver legal aid services.

1,049 of these providers and 1,609 of these offices were contracted to deliver criminal legal aid. Meanwhile, 1,280 providers and 2,192 offices were contracted to deliver civil legal aid.

Changes in these statistics are driven by the commencement of new contracts, where typically we see a peak in provider numbers, which then taper off during the lifetime of the contract. Figures may also change for previous months to reflect changes in contract holders that are processed in retrospect.

See interactive breakdown here.

Like our latest annual legal aid provider statistics, these statistics relate to the number of legal aid providers in England and Wales. However, instead of reporting the number of providers starting and completing cases, this chapter shows the number of legal aid providers and offices that hold either a crime and/or civil contract in each month. As some providers bill their work in months when they do not hold a contract, these numbers are slightly lower than those presented in the previous chapter. These statistics do not include non-contracted providers who may be operating under an Individual Case Contract. The number of legal aid providers and offices is accurate as at the start of each month.

The LAA uses these statistics to monitor the availability of legal aid services over time, in different areas of law and different regions of England Wales. They are nonetheless a proxy measure of capacity only, since they do not indicate the number of practitioners at a given time.

The underlying anonymised data files and an interactive data dashboard are published quarterly alongside this bulletin. This tool additionally shows the number of members and offices for each police station duty solicitor scheme. For the number of civil legal aid providers reported in Table 9.7, definitions of each category of law under the Standard civil contract 2024 can be found on the gov.uk website. Geographical figures in the interactive data dashboard are based on the provider office location and not the location of the client. A provider may serve clients from other geographic areas as well as that in which the office is located. As this data reflects only the location of the provider office it cannot be used as a reliable indicator of the distribution of the clients or benefits of legal aid, or as a precise picture of coverage of legal aid services.

As part of the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid covering a complete picture of the legal services provider base (advocacy and litigation) for the publicly-funded criminal justice system in England and Wales, this section discusses the analytical findings from the data sharing agreements between The Law Society, the Bar Council, the Legal Aid Agency, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Ministry of Justice. The commentary on the analysis is built upon the Summary Information on Publicly Funded Criminal Legal Services. The figures provide an analysis of the publicly-funded criminal legal system, detailing insights into the characteristics of law firms, their solicitors and barristers that received publicly-funded legal aid case payments. The analysis covers financial years 2014-15 to 2024-25 and are summarised in tables 12.1 to 12.3. The data collected cover solicitor firms (see interactive dashboard), trainees and solicitor (see interactive dashboard), duty solicitors (see interactive dashboard) and barristers (see interactive dashboard).

Firms that were identified, through the data matching, as receiving criminal legal aid payments during the financial years covered are referred to as criminal legal aid firms. The criminal legal aid fee income shown in the tables includes disbursements and VAT when applicable for the matched criminal legal aid firms.

For more detailed breakdowns and information on criminal legal aid firms see the interactive dashboard.

Further information

National Statistics status

National Statistics are accredited official statistics. These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in December 2016. They comply with the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’. Note that accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Official Statistics

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Contact

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:

Website: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/media-enquiries

Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to the Analysis directorate of the Ministry of Justice:

Legal Aid statistics team

Access to Justice Data and Statistics

Email: statistics@justice.gov.uk

Telephone: +44 7784 275495

Tables and data

We publish a number of resources alongside the quarterly statistical bulletin:

Help

Further information about these statistics is available at the following links:

  • Index of data in Legal aid statistics: An index to the more detailed data published in the .ods file format, lists of available data from Legal Aid systems and guidance on how to work with the more detailed data.

  • User Guide to legal aid statistics: This provides comprehensive information about data sources and quality as well as key legislative changes.

  • Quality Statement: This provides detail on how legal aid statistics meet user needs.

Web tools

Our interactive data visualisation tools can be found at the following links:

Next update: 24 September 2026

URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/legal-aid-statistics

© Crown copyright Produced by the Ministry of Justice

Alternative formats are available on request from statistics@justice.gov.uk.

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