The government was accused of ‘reckless’ and ‘savage’ cuts to criminal legal aid this week, as information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) seen exclusively by the Gazette cast doubt on the need for the reductions.

The Ministry of Justice said the cuts to police station and Crown court fees which were proposed last month were necessary to ‘rebalance’ the budget by reducing spend on criminal legal aid and focusing on ‘priority areas of civil.’

However, the FoI request revealed a 15% drop in the cost of police station and magistrates’ court work in Greater Manchester since 2005, implying that police station costs are already falling.

The figures, obtained from the Legal Services Commission by Franklin Sinclair, a partner at Manchester firm Tuckers, showed that spending had fallen by more than £5m in the last four years.

Sinclair said the ‘savage’ cuts were ‘reckless in the extreme and criminal lawyers are close to the final breaking point.’

But an LSC spokesman said the trend in Greater Manchester was not borne out nationwide.

He added that even where the volume of cases had decreased, the cost had still risen since the general criminal contract was introduced in 2001.

The MoJ conceded that police station expenditure had been ‘fairly stable’ at around £180m per year, but said there were wide ‘unjustified’ regional variations, which the current proposals would address.

Paul Mendelle QC (pictured), the new chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, told the Gazette the ‘ill-considered’ and ‘cavalier’ cuts were a ‘slap in the face’ to the bar and would deter talented young lawyers from publicly funded work. The proposals would see defence barristers’ fees cut to the same level as prosecutors in Crown court work.

Barristers acting for the prosecution currently receive 23% less pay than those acting for the defence, according to the MoJ.