Legal aid statistics quarterly: October to December 2022
Activity in the legal aid system for England and Wales, including criminal and civil legal aid and family mediation.
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 October to December 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 civil legal aid has increased year on year and has also increased more over the recent quarters. Following recovery from the impact of the pandemic, criminal legal aid expenditure has fallen in the most recent quarter due to strike action in the previous quarter in the Crown Court which impacted workload completed within the last two quarters.
Criminal legal aid workload for representation at the courts had returned to levels seen before covid but in the last few quarters we’ve seen falls in both courts suggesting a sustained fall in cases reaching court. In the last few quarters, we have seen a small increase in police station claims and an increase in representation orders at the magistrates’ court. Expenditure in the police station increased in the quarter rose as expected due to higher fees for police station advice introduced at the end of September 2022. Extended sentencing powers at the magistrates’ court, since temporary implementation in May 2022, has been feeding through to overall volumes with less committals for sentence arriving at the Crown Court and subsequently more trial work held at the lower court.
Civil legal aid volumes and expenditure show a varied picture compared to last year. Overall civil expenditure is returning to pre-pandemic levels driven by family law expenditure with the number of claims being paid outside of the fixed fee scheme increasing due to more time being taken during the court process. Other non-family workload has not recovered to the same extent, and this is driven by a slow recovery of housing work 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 and legal help, immigration.
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 (2), Special Advisor Inbox, Legal Aid Policy Officials (3), Press Officers (5), 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