The Ministry of Justice received 5,000 responses to its consultation on legal aid cuts, Jonathan Djanogly told the Justice Committee this morning.

The legal aid minister told the committee he could not discuss what the responses to the consultation, which closed on Monday, but said the Ministry would consider them and hoped to respond by Easter.

Meanwhile, with its consultation response, to be approved by Council later today, the Law Society will submit the findings of a survey of criminal practitioners on the causes of delay and inefficiency in the criminal justice system, that have a knock-on impact on the cost of legal aid cases.

The web survey of 245 people (172 defence solicitors and 55 prosecutors) showed the most significant delays were attributed to the police in relation to defendants bailed back to the police station and to the failure to provide advanced information.

Failures by prosecutors to comply with disclosure rules, turning up to court without files and failing to comply with court orders, were cited next.

The use of associate prosecutors (APs) contributed to delays for two reasons. Firstly, delays occurred where the AP had been assigned to a case without authority to make a decision. Secondly, where senior prosecutors were called away from other courtrooms to assist an AP or act in a supervisory capacity, this also resulted in a delay.

Respondents reported delays due to multiple cases being listed at the same time, failures by the probation service to supply pre-sentence reports, and failures by the Prison Service to produce defendants at court.

Witnesses failing to attend court at the correct time, and prosecutors having to leave the courtroom to call their own witnesses, due to a lack of court staff, were also listed.

An overall lack of communication was seen to pervade the entire process, respondees said.

Defence solicitors also highlighted the problem of delay in getting a decision on legal aid, which resulted in many unnecessary trips to court to repeatedly adjourn hearings.

The survey was carried out in November and December 2010 and practitioners were asked to provide a snapshot of their experiences over a two-week period. Just 8.7% reported that they had experienced no delay at all in their cases over that period.

The full survey results can be found on the Law Society website here.