In his first speech on criminal justice since taking office, justice secretary Ken Clarke yesterday laid out his plans for the reform of the courts, legal aid and sentencing.First, he addressed proposals announced last week to close almost a third of the country’s courts, explore alternative methods of dispute resolution, and use technology to avoid people having to attend court for routine matters.

The driver for this is not to improve access to justice or outcomes, but ‘financial reality’ – it’s cheaper.

On legal aid, Clarke confirmed that the government will be looking to cut eligibility and fees, candidly admitting ‘we cannot…afford the system we’ve got’, where £38 per person per year is spent on legal aid.

He wants to see greater use of mediation in family disputes, and the Ministry of Justice has launched a review looking at how the family justice system can provide a better service for less money.

Prisons, says Clarke, are costly and ineffectual, so he wants to find ways to reduce the future prison population and cut reoffending.

The government’s ‘rehabilitation revolution’ envisages: prisons that are places of punishment; education; hard work and change; and rigorously enforced community sentences that punish offenders but also get them off drugs and into work (what work? You might ask, but that’s a different debate).

Part of the government’s policy will be to get independent organisations involved in reducing re-offending, and paying them to keep offenders away from crime.

Announcing a review of sentencing policy to introduce minimum and maximum sentences, and improve the effectiveness of community penalties, Clarke called for ‘more intelligent sentencing’ that will seek to give ‘better value for money’.

However he warned: ‘I certainly cannot promise that we will be investing vast amounts of money in non-custodial sentences.’

Despite Clarke’s rhetoric about going back to first principles – punishing offenders, protecting the public and providing access to justice – the golden thread running through the speech was the pressing need to save money. As we know, nearly every government department is expected to have to cut its budgets by around a quarter – an unprecedented amount.

With the constant references to cost-savings, Clarke’s speech did appear a recipe for justice on a shoestring, with the government deluding itself into thinking it can ‘spend less and do things better at the same time’.

Clarke reassured listeners: ‘Spending less must not mean damaging criminal justice and if we are sophisticated and intelligent in what we do we will not cause harm.’

Sophisticated and intelligent, the MoJ? We shall see.