Legal aid statistics England and Wales bulletin Oct to Dec 2023
Published 28 March 2024
Applies to England and Wales
© Crown copyright 2024
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected].
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/legal-aid-statistics-quarterly-october-to-december-2023/legal-aid-statistics-england-and-wales-bulletin-oct-to-dec-2023
Main points
| Representation orders granted in magistrates’ court increased by 7% while Crown Court increased by 11%. | ⬈ | The early workload indicators for court volume and eventual fee payments show increasing trends across the two courts with more serious claims rising in recent periods. |
| In the magistrates’ court the volume of completed work increased by 7% and associated expenditure increased by 13% when compared to the same period last year. | ⬈ | At the police station, the volume of work increased by 15% with expenditure increasing by 21% due to higher fees for police station advice. |
| Overall Crown Court expenditure increased by 43% this quarter compared with the same period of the previous year. | ⬈ | This is driven by rising receipts in the magistrates’ and Crown courts with criminal legal aid workload rising 15% over the same period, higher fees paid in both fee schemes and comparing against a period affected by industrial action. |
| Civil closed case expenditure increased by 6% this quarter compared to October to December 2022. | ⬈ | This increase is driven by family civil representation expenditure, increasing by 5% over the same period due to an increase in the time taken to progress through the court process. |
| The number of Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings increased by 8% compared with the same quarter of 2022. | ⬈ | Mediation outcomes increased by 11% compared with October to December 2022. |
| Applications for civil representation supported by evidence of domestic violence or child abuse increased by 2%. | ⬈ | The volume of these granted increased by 1% compared to the same period of 2022. The proportion of these granted is 83%. |
| 842 applications for Exceptional Case Funding were received in the last quarter. | ⬊ | This is a 3% decrease from the same quarter last year. This is driven by a fall in the immigration category. |
This edition comprises the first release of official statistics for the three-month period from October to December 2023 and the latest statement of all figures for previous periods. For more detailed commentary, and statistics on providers of legal aid, Central Funds and legal aid in the higher courts, please refer to our latest annual publication. For technical detail, please refer to our user guide for these 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. Criminal legal aid expenditure in the most recent quarter is compared to a period covering the impact of industrial action last year in the Crown Court, which in turn reduced workload completed and the associated expenditure, which means that some of the large increases are not indicative of underlying trends in the system.
In the last few quarters, we have seen increases in police station claims and a corresponding increase in representation orders at the magistrates’ court. Expenditure in the police station increased in the quarter again, as expected, due to higher fees for police station advice that were introduced at the end of 2022. Crown Court workload completions are showing a return to more serious types of claim with trials increasing showing impacts of increased resourcing in the criminal courts.
Overall civil expenditure is increasing which is driven by increases in 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 again 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, immigration and mental health.
Figures are included covering the recently introduced Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service and breakdowns of these numbers are available in the underlying data accompanying this report
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.
Figure 1: Overall annual legal aid expenditure, by closed-case and RDEL nominal and real terms measures (£m), 2005-06 to 2022-23
See interactive breakdown here.
Criminal legal aid
| Data visualisation tool | Help | Tables |
In the magistrates’ court the volume of completed work increased by 7% 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 15% with a 21% increase in corresponding expenditure. This is due to higher fees for police station advice introduced at the end of September 2022.
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 October to December 2023 compared with October to December 2022
| Crime overview | Workload | Expenditure |
|---|---|---|
| Crime | 279,524 (15%⬈) | £253.7m (34%⬈) |
| Crime Lower | 235,010 (13%⬈) | £ 75.6m (17%⬈) |
| Crown Court | 44,514 (24%⬈) | £178.1m (43%⬈) |
| Crime Lower category | Workload | Expenditure |
|---|---|---|
| Advice & Assistance on Appeals | 217 (-30%⬊) | £ 0.6m (-3%⬊) |
| Civil work associated with crime cases | 29 (71%⬈) | £ 0.0m (63%⬈) |
| Magistrates court representation | 67,198 (7%⬈) | £ 31.0m (13%⬈) |
| Police Station Advice | 163,441 (15%⬈) | £ 38.9m (21%⬈) |
| Prison Law | 4,125 (15%⬈) | £ 5.0m (15%⬈) |
| Crown Court category | Workload | Expenditure |
|---|---|---|
| Advocate Graduated Fee Scheme | 21,890 (25%⬈) | £ 73.9m (60%⬈) |
| High Cost Crime | 6 (0%⬌) | £ 2.7m (-27%⬊) |
| Litigator Graduated Fee Scheme | 22,618 (22%⬈) | £101.5m (36%⬈) |
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 three quarters of all criminal legal aid expenditure. Conversely, advice relating to the police station makes up around three quarters of workload, but only around a half of expenditure.
Figure 3: Workload in criminal legal aid, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown of crime trend and crime lower.
Figure 4: Expenditure in criminal legal aid, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
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 70% of the Crime Lower workload between October and December 2023 but only 52% of the expenditure. The workload in this period increased by 15% compared to the previous year, with expenditure increasing by 21% (£6.6m). This is due to a 15% uplift in fees for police station advice introduced at the end of September 2022 as part of the criminal legal aid reforms. This reverses the general downward trend seen over the last few years with a decrease in police station advice workload after 2013-14.
The majority of the police station advice workload (89% in October and December 2023) 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. The number of orders granted for legally-aided representation in the magistrates’ court increased by 7% this quarter compared to the same quarter of the previous year. This reverses the downward trend of the last 3 years, which was largely driven by Summary Only cases.
Orders granted for legally-aided representation in the Crown Court increased by 11% this quarter compared to last year. Within the legal aid figure, orders relating to either-way offences increased by 14%, while those relating to indictable offences increased by 5%. The proportion of Crown Court applications granted remains at almost 100%.
Magistrates’ court completed work
Legally-aided representation in the magistrates’ court comprised roughly one quarter, (29%) of the workload and around two fifths (41%) of expenditure in Crime Lower between October and December 2023. The volume of completed work (covered in this report) increased by 7% this quarter when compared to the same period of the previous year. Expenditure also increased by 13% (£3.5m).
These changes incorporate the accelerated Criminal legal aid reforms since October 2020 which cover payment for work on sending cases to the Crown Court. This new category shown in the tables accompanying this bulletin had 11,030 completed claims costing around £2.9m this quarter.
Crown Court completed work
Criminal legal aid workload and expenditure in the most recent quarter is compared to a period covering the impact of industrial action last year in the Crown Court, which in turn reduced workload completed and the associated expenditure, and so many of the large increases are not indicative of underlying trends in the system. Completed work volumes within the litigator (solicitor) fee scheme increased by 22% in October to December 2023 compared to the same period of the previous year, driven mainly by a 41% increase in trial claims.
In the advocate fee scheme, completed claims increased by 25% compared to the same period last year.
Figure 5: Workload in the Crown Court, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
In the litigator fee scheme, expenditure increased by 36% in October to December 2023 compared to the same period of the previous year. In the advocate fee scheme, the value of payments increased by 60% 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.
There were 6 defendants represented in the VHCC contracts that concluded in the October to December 2023 quarter. Expenditure on this work over the duration of the contracts (i.e. on the closed-case basis) was £2.7m. This compares with £8.3m of expenditure during the same period across all ongoing claims within the VHCC scheme, suggesting that there is a large backlog of claims in the court system waiting to be finalised with cases started receiving large ongoing payments before completion of the whole claim.
While workload comprises a tiny proportion of legal aid in the Crown Court overall, the VHCC scheme represents around 2% of the cost, although down from 13% in April to May 2013.
Figure 6: Expenditure in the Crown Court, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
The large falls in completed expenditure are a consequence of fewer jury trials completing in the Crown Court during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, as all expenditure across the case will be in the final main bill. 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 were particularly affected, because they need more courtroom space and distancing measures and are likely to include witnesses and members of the public in the jury pool. Trial completed expenditure was more adversely affected than guilty pleas and cracked trials (where a defendant changes their plea before the trial), with litigator fee expenditure much lower.
Figure 7: Litigator Fee Scheme Crown Court expenditure by claim type, April to June 2015 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Prison Law
Workload this quarter increased by 15% compared with the same period in the previous year. This is driven mainly by free standing advice and assistance which increased by 16% when compared to October to December 2022.
Conversely, advocacy assistance at parole board hearings increased by 4% compared to last year, although they have decreased by 4% since last quarter (see Figure 8). Advocacy at parole board hearings currently makes up around two fifths(41%) of prison law workload, but a much larger proportion of costs (78%), so expenditure on prison law overall increased by 15% over this period, with a 14% increase in free standing advice and assistance reducing the overall increase.
Since April to June 2020, the workload and expenditure for advocacy assistance at prison discipline hearings has remained low with a change in process for internal prisons hearings continuing since the pandemic. Year-to-year comparisons show that workload increased by 107% and expenditure increased by 160% this quarter compared to last year showing that work is recovering in this area.
Prison law work still comprises a small portion of the volume (1%) and expenditure (2%) of total criminal legal aid work in October to December 2023.
Figure 8: Prison Law completed workload, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
Figure 9: Prison Law completed expenditure, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
New categories with small volumes are not shown: ‘advocacy assistance at sentence reviews’ and ‘advocacy assistance at Parole Board reconsideration hearings’.
Civil legal aid
| Data visualisation tool | Help | Tables |
The number of certificates completed increased by 16%, and the associated expenditure increased by 6% over the same period. At a cost of £230.7m in October to December 2023, total civil representation expenditure is the highest it has been since 2011-12.
This is due to the number of claims being paid outside of the fixed fee scheme increasing due to more time being taken during the court process.
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 10: Civil overview, closed case volumes and expenditure for October to December 2023, and comparison with October to December 2022
| Civil overview | Workload | Expenditure |
|---|---|---|
| Civil | 74,506 (16%⬈) | £259.7m (6%⬈) |
| Family | 32,198 (12%⬈) | £210.2m (5%⬈) |
| Non-Family | 37,494 (20%⬈) | £ 48.1m (13%⬈) |
| Family category | Workload | Expenditure |
|---|---|---|
| Family Public | 20,543 (13%⬈) | £166.7m (4%⬈) |
| Family Private | 11,655 (10%⬈) | £ 43.4m (10%⬈) |
| Mediation and MIAMS* | 4,814 (9%⬈) | £ 1.5m (8%⬈) |
| Non-Family category | Workload | Expenditure |
|---|---|---|
| Immigration | 17,153 (37%⬈) | £ 16.6m (34%⬈) |
| Mental Health | 8,460 (0%⬈) | £ 12.1m (-2%⬊) |
| Housing | 8,300 (19%⬈) | £ 6.2m (13%⬈) |
| Other Non-Family | 3,581 (11%⬈) | £ 13.2m (8%⬈) |
*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 32,198 and 37,494 cases in October to December 2023 respectively, non-family cases make up only around a fifth of total civil legal aid expenditure (19%). Public family legal aid makes up just under two thirds (57%) of family legal aid work and around three quarters (77%) of expenditure.
Legal help and controlled legal representation
In the last quarter, there was an 11% increase in legal help new matter starts compared to the same period of 2022. The volume of completed claims increased by 19% and expenditure increased by 11% in October to December 2023 compared to the same period in 2022 (Figure 11).
The implementation of the LASPO Act in April 2013 resulted in large reductions in legal help workload, with the decline in the overall trend being further exacerbated by the effects of COVID-19, workload now sits at less than one-quarter of pre-LASPO levels.
Figure 11: Completed workload in legal help and controlled legal representation, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Figure 12: Completed workload expenditure in legal help and controlled legal representation, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Family legal help
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.
From 1 September 2021, callers to the Civil Legal Advice (CLA) helpline with family issues are no longer referred to specialist telephone advice. In October to December 2023 family legal help starts increased by 3% compared to the same quarter last year. Completed claims increased by 5% and expenditure also decreased by 1%.
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. MIAMs, family mediation starts, and outcomes decreased significantly following the COVID-19 restrictions in March 2020. Since then, volumes and expenditure rapidly increased to levels temporarily exceeding pre-COVID figures. The volume of MIAMs increased by 8% in the last quarter compared to the previous year and currently stand at just over a third of pre-LASPO levels. Family mediation starts decreased by 1% and total outcomes increased by 11%, of which 58% were successful agreements, and are now sitting at around half of pre-LASPO levels.
Figure 13: Family mediation assessments, starts and agreements, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Non-family legal help and controlled legal representation
Controlled legal representation relates to representation at tribunal, but unlike civil representation, the decision on whether to grant legal aid is delegated to providers.
Legal help and controlled legal representation make up 98% of immigration and 94% of mental health legal aid cases.
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. Having fallen by over 45% in April to June 2020, new matter starts in immigration increased by 25% in October to December 2023 compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Completed claims in immigration increased by 37% in the last quarter compared to the previous year and expenditure increased by 28%.
Within mental health, most funding is spent on providing assistance to sectioned clients appealing the terms of their detention before a mental health tribunal. Mental health new matter starts increased by 2% when comparing the latest quarter to the previous year. Completed claims also was unchanged and expenditure decreased by 4% over the same period.
More than three quarters (83%) 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. Starts and completed claims nearly halved again during the first COVID-19 lockdown between January to March 2020 and April to June 2020. In more recent months, October to December 2023, there was a 6% increase in housing work starts compared to the same quarter the previous year. There were also a 19% increase in completed claims with an 8% increase in expenditure.
Housing advice
Claims 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 note that these do not include the category of law covering legal help housing advice found in the 5.1/2/3 series of tables.
There were 7,105 in court claims completed in this quarter under the HLPAS with the expenditure being £0.72m. This compares, as expected, with 7,322 from the previous quarter when combining HLPAS and the remaining HPCDS work with a cost of £0.77m. The new HLPAS early advice service had 497 claims with expenditure of £95k.
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
The number of civil representation certificates granted in the last quarter increased by 1% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of certificates completed increased by 13%, and the associated expenditure increased by 6% over the same period.
This is due to the number of claims being paid outside of the fixed fee scheme increasing due to more time being taken during the court process. At a cost of around £230.7m in October to December 2023, total civil representation expenditure where met by the LAA is the highest it has been since 2011-12.
Figure 14: Completed workload in civil representation, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Figure 15: Completed workload expenditure in civil representation, April to June 2011 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Non-Family Civil Representation
Non-family certificates completed make up 11% of the total civil representation workload and 10% 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 10% compared to the same period of the previous year.
Family civil representation
Certificates granted for family work was unchanged in October to December 2023 compared to the previous year. Certificates completed increased by 13% and associated expenditure has increased by 5% 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. The volume and expenditure for closed case domestic violence civil representation increased following COVID-19. More recently, in October to December 2023, certificates completed for domestic violence increased by 9% compared to the same period of the previous year.
In October to December 2023, applications for civil representation supported by evidence of domestic violence or child abuse increased by 2% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of certificates granted via the domestic violence and child abuse gateway increased by 1% 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 83%.
Figure 16: Applications received and total certificates granted via the domestic violence and child abuse gateway, April to June 2013 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Judicial reviews
Of all civil representation applications granted, 789 in the last quarter related to a judicial review. The number granted in October to December 2023 increased by 15% compared with the same quarter in 2022. 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 842 applications for ECF received from October to December 2023. This is a 3% decrease from the same quarter last year. 786 (93%) of these were new applications.
Of the 842 ECF applications received between October and December 2023, 98% (828) had been determined by the LAA as of 01 March 2024. 74% (610) of these were granted, 14% (114) were refused and 10% (83) rejected (see Figure 18).
Figure 17: Volume of ECF applications received, April to June 2014 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Among the ECF applications received between October and December 2023, immigration (64%), 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 18: Proportion of ECF determinations by outcome, April to June 2013 to October to December 2023
See interactive breakdown here.
Official statistics: Legal aid provider contracts
| Data visualisation tool | Help | Tables |
At the start of March 2024, there were 2,055 providers and 3,286 offices contracted to deliver legal aid services.
1,066 of these providers and 1,596 of these offices were contracted to deliver criminal legal aid. Meanwhile, 1,321 providers and 2,172 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.
Figure 19: Number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services by area of law, September 2018 to March 2024
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 instead 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 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 2018 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.
Official statistics: Criminal Legal Aid data share
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 year 2014-15 to 2021-22 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
This publication presents quarterly data trends. For figures published annually, including those on providers of legal aid, appealing legal aid decisions, Central Funds, and legal aid in the higher courts, please refer to our latest annual publication.
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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] or via the OSR website.
Contact
Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:
Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to the Data & Analysis directorate of the Ministry of Justice:
Carly Gray
Head of Access to Justice Data and Statistics
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: +447784 275495
Tables and data
We publish a number of resources alongside the quarterly statistical bulletin:
- A set of interactive tables, which give further detail and full time-series for each scheme under both crime and civil
- An ods (Open document source) spreadsheet download for all tables, which provide full time-series for each scheme.
- Also an accessible version of the ods (Open document source) spreadsheet download for all tables, which also provide full time-series for each scheme.
- Main data and Civil detailed data: Detailed data files to enable independent analysis, provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format.
- Provider contracts data: Criminal and Civil legal aid provider contracts data are provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format.
- Data Share data: Criminal legal aid data share data provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format.
- Diversity data and Provider data: Client characteristics data and Providers starts and completions by area and legal aid schemes are provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format, please refer to the latest annual publication.
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:
- List of data visualisation tools: A list of the web-based tools across the legal aid statistics release.
- Main visualisation tool: A web-based tool allowing the user to view and customise charts and tables based on the published statistics.
Next update: 27 June 2024
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 [email protected].