Legal aid statistics quarterly: April to June 2022
Workload and expenditure in the legal aid system for England and Wales, including criminal legal aid, civil legal aid, family mediation and exceptional case funding
Documents
Details
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 April to June 2022 and also provides the latest statement of figures for all earlier periods. This edition also includes figures on Criminal Legal Aid Reform accelerated measures. These statistics are derived from data held by LAA, produced and published by Legal Aid Statistics team of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ). Link to Data visualisation tool, a web-based tool allowing the user to view and customize charts and tables based on the published statistics.
Statistician’s Comment
This publication shows that expenditure across both criminal and civil legal aid has increased year on year and has also increased more over the recent quarters, following recovery from covid-19.
Criminal legal aid expenditure increased 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 had returned to levels seen in the period pre-covid-19 but in the last few quarters we’ve seen falls in both courts suggesting a sustained fall in cases reaching court. There are increases in expenditure this quarter compared to the previous year although expenditure has still not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Civil legal aid volumes and expenditure show a mixed picture compared to last year. Overall civil expenditure is returning to pre-pandemic levels driven by family law expenditure. Other non-family workload has not recovered to the same extent and this is driven by the slow recovery of housing work following the impact of covid-19 although in the last quarter this has increased. Overall civil legal aid workload still remains below pre-pandemic levels although trends are increasing in domestic violence, mental health and, within exceptional case funding, immigration.
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.
Pre-release
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, Head of Legal Aid Policy, Special Advisor Inbox, Legal Aid Policy Officials (4), Press Officers (4), Digital Officers (2), Private secretaries (5), Legal Aid Analysis (2)
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