The government has underestimated the number of people who will be denied legal aid funding because of its reforms by more than 150,000, according to research published today by campaign body the Legal Action Group.

LAG said the government’s prediction that 502,000 people would lose access to civil legal aid had ‘grossly underestimated’ the impact of its cuts, putting the true figure at more than 650,000.

The group compared the figures quoted in the government’s impact assessment, which accompanied its legal aid consultation paper, with the Legal Services Commission’s own records for legal advice cases in 2008/09. Applying the same formula used by the MoJ to work out the reduction in cases after the cuts, LAG calculated that 615,880 people would lose out on legal advice services.

The group said the ministry’s decision to base its predictions on figures for completed cases rather than new cases meant that it had underestimated the number of people who would lose entitlement by a further 40,000.

LAG also questioned why the MoJ had chosen to base its impact assessment on statistics from 2008/09, which were more than a year out of date. It said the effect of the recession, the increase in care applications following the Baby P case, and the previous government’s 5% increase in legal aid eligibility had all led to an increase in family, housing, debt advice, immigration and other civil cases in 2009/10.

LAG said that if the ministry had used LSC figures for new cases in the year ended March 2010, calculations showed that more than 650,000 people would lose legal aid eligibility. It added that the MoJ had also failed to consider how many people currently receiving telephone advice would be affected.

LAG director Steve Hynes said: ‘The government used the most generous interpretation of the data it thought it could get away with. This really is a case of lies, damned lies and statistics.

‘It is clear from this research that the impact of the proposed legal aid cuts on the numbers of people seeking help with common legal problems is far greater than was previously estimated by the government.’

Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said it was ‘hard to dispel the suspicion that once again the MoJ has embarked on a programme of painful change, without properly understanding the impact of its proposals’.