The Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board (CLAAB) will not be ‘just another talking shop’, defence practitioners have been told by the judge leading the new body.
CLAAB was set up nearly a year after the Bellamy review on criminal legal aid recommended the establishment of an independent advisory board. Its aim is to ensure the defence community has ongoing input into the future development of the criminal legal aid system.
Her Honour Judge Deborah Taylor, appointed by the government in July, told the Criminal Law Practitioners Association conference last Friday that ‘this is not going to be just another talking shop, not on my watch’.
The Bellamy review, which recommended a minimum 15% fee uplift, was published in November 2021. ‘The situation has changed and not for the better,’ Taylor said.
Discussing remit, Taylor stressed that the board is not permitted to make specific recommendations on numbers when it comes to fee increases, but instead consider and recommend where, if necessary, uplifts would be appropriate.
Taylor has asked board members, which include the Law Society and practitioner groups, to provide a timeline for case progression to help the board consider how fee schemes could operate better to encourage cases to progress.
The board will review how fee schemes are structured and whether, for instance, a structure based on case complexity could replace one based on pages of prosecution evidence.
Proceeds of crime will also be considered, Taylor said. When money is subject to a confiscation order, it is split between wider criminal justice agencies, the Home Office and Treasury. ‘The omission for any support for legal aid is one we will be looking at as a matter of priority,’ Taylor said. ‘It is the most accessible source of additional funding… It is an attractive aspect of funding coming from funds generated by the criminal justice system itself and not by taxation.’
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