Abstract:
Legal aid is government-funded support towards legal costs, aimed at ensuring that people who could not otherwise afford legal advice or representation are still able to access the justice system, subject to eligibility rules. It is provided for individuals and cases that qualify for it, in both criminal and civil jurisdictions. In 2012, the government fundamentally restructured legal aid in England and Wales, by introducing LASPO (the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012). It restricted civil (non-criminal) legal aid to a limited list of case types, changed financial eligibility and contribution rules, and raised client contributions. Fees paid to providers in both civil and criminal work were also reduced. This report examines how civil legal aid provision in England and Wales has evolved since the introduction of these reforms. While criminal legal aid changed too, that is not the focus of this report. Drawing on Ministry of Justice administrative data and Census-linked information on deprivation, the analysis tracks changes in the volume of civil legal aid cases, associated levels of public expenditure, the number and distribution of civil legal aid providers, and the relationship between these changes and local socio-economic conditions. The findings show that civil legal aid provision has contracted substantially since 2012, alongside a decline in the number of providers and increasing geographic unevenness in access.
