• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• UK: Legal aid shake-up planned

UK: Legal aid shake-up planned

01 May 1995

A Green Paper on the future of legal aid will restrict the provision of legally aided services to firms holding franchises and will impose national and local cash limits. The proposals would allow Citizen's Advice Bureauxs to hold franchises and would give franchise holders more choice in how the money is spent, including an extension of legal aid to employment, social security, rent and immigration tribunals. Lord Mackay says he is trying to move away from a lawyer-led system which has led to a fivefold increase in spending on legal aid in ten years, to £1.2 billion in 1993/4, while simultaneously depriving more and more people of access to justice. Critics argue that the proposals do nothing to end the duplication of work caused by a dual profession and do not tackle the overpayment of barristers in criminal legally aided work. Neither do they deal with anomalies which allow the hugely wealthy to qualify for legal aid in fraud trials. Thus, the Barlow Clowes trial, which lasted four months, cost £6.5 million in legal aid, and some barristers receive £2,000 per day, while since 1993 people wanting legal advice and assistance do not qualify under the legal aid scheme if their disposable income exceeds £61 per week. Meanwhile, the Courts service is to charge daily hearing fees of £200 to £300 to litigants; there have been 10,000 complaints about the courts since the courts' charter was introduced in 1993 and £600,000 has been paid out in compensation; the retiring age for judges was reduced to 70 from 75 in April. Independent 5.4.95 & 18.5.95; Guardian 20.5.95 & 4.4.95.