News focus: It's official - civil legal aid provision is withering away

The findings of a survey of providers commissioned for the government’s review of the fragile civil legal aid sector reveal nothing new – but still make for grim reading.

The Ministry of Justice wanted to understand the key ‘pain points’, how these could affect future service provision, why providers are doing legal aid and their ability to meet demand. PA Consulting carried out the research and its findings are based on responses from 18% of the 1,246 civil legal aid providers on the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) database.

Two-thirds of private practices and 37% of non-profits stopped doing legal aid work in the past because it was no longer financially viable.

Over half of private practices do not make a profit from civil legal aid work: 33% said the service was loss-making, 22% broke even. Four in 10 non-profits are heavily reliant on trusts or charitable donations as a source of revenue.

Four in 10 respondents will quit the sector or reduce their legal aid work in the next 12 months. Worse, four in 10 will ‘actively’ quit the sector in the next five years.

Demand for services significantly outstrips supply. One south of England non-profit has to ‘cherry-pick’ cases.

If providers are struggling to keep their head above water, why keep providing legal aid services? For altruistic reasons, in some cases.

One north of England respondent said: ‘Our client group do not have much access to legal information and assistance is extremely limited, and their problems are multi-faceted and complex. It is important for us to be able to provide them with legal representation they would otherwise not get.’

The biggest pain points? Low fees, spending excess unbillable time, fee structure rigidity, time needed to manage the client and cumbersome administration.

‘Assessing financial eligibility for legal help/legal aid can be very time-consuming for clients who are not passported. We have to analyse multiple bank statements for a single client… Our clients’ accurate income/capital is not easy to identify and often requires us to obtain evidence of third-party financial support from friends/relatives/professional organisations,’ one London non-profit said.

'The people who work in the sector at the moment will place their own wellbeing (generally and financially) to one side because of their personal commitment to the clients who need help through the system'

South-west firm

Administration related to getting paid, the fragility of the LAA infrastructure and difficulties with the agency’s decision-making ‘were all pain points more likely to be experienced weekly (compared to the average proportion across all pain points)’.

If the government fails to prescribe the right medicine, it seems clear that the (demographically ageing) patient will eventually expire.

One north of England respondent said: ‘Due to frozen incomes and increasing overheads, there is a steady decline in the number of solicitors who provide legal aid work. As solicitor numbers decline, firms who continue to provide legal aid provision have to take on increased workload to be undertaken by fewer staff. The quality of work-life is in decline due to the stress of managing increased workloads with declining profitability. I earn less now than I did 10 years ago, but work much harder.’

Another firm, from London, was even more blunt: ‘Surviving firms are resting on staff in their 50s and 60s. As soon as they retire, the collapse is inevitable.’

Practitioner goodwill is propping up the system in the meantime.

One south-west firm said: ‘The legal aid system currently survives because there are people who are committed to the principle despite the challenges. The people who work in the sector at the moment will place their own wellbeing (generally and financially) to one side because of their personal commitment to the clients who need help through the system. The number of lawyers willing to do that is reducing weekly.’

The report’s conclusion? ‘The evidence paints a stark picture of the challenges experienced by civil legal aid providers and responses indicate that there is notable cause for concern over the long-term sustainability of the civil legal aid sector.’

Over the next fortnight, the MoJ will convene six focus groups with practitioners. A call for evidence, which opened on 10 January, closes on 21 February.

The review, announced a year ago, finally appears to be picking up pace. However, action to save the ailing sector cannot come soon enough.

The review’s four workstreams – economic analysis, international comparator, data publication and user journey social research – will conclude by March. A government consultation on proposals will emerge ‘later in the year’.

But the survey findings raise the question: how many more providers will have quit by then?

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