Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 23
23
Deferred
Stakeholders warn MoJ's actions on legal aid sustainability are insufficient and too slow
Conclusion
Written evidence we received from organisations including the Law Society, Public Law Project and Law Centres Network all raised concerns about whether the actions MoJ has taken to date were sufficient or fast enough to tackle long-term sustainability issues.44 For example, the Law Society stressed that for civil legal aid, there is no mechanism to ensure regular fee reviews going forward, no timetable for the implementation of housing and immigration fees and no commitment for increases to other areas of civil legal aid which are in urgent need of investment. Regarding criminal legal aid fees, it stated that it has been two years since MoJ committed to restructuring the Litigators’ Graduated Fee Scheme (LFGS) through the CLAAB but that no viable scheme has been proposed as MoJ has stated it does not have the required data.45 Cyberattack response
Government Response Summary
The department will explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid firms, improve management information collected on demand, streamline processes and reduce administrative burdens, and will provide an update to the Committee on this work in October 2026.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: October 2026 5.2 The department recognises that understanding the sustainability of the market and taking steps to support it is important to maintain effective access to justice for clients. 5.3 The department’s current focus in this regard is to improve understanding of demand for legal aid services and the sector’s capacity to meet that demand. This provides direct insight into market sustainability. Part of building this understanding is the department’s work, with support from Ipsos, to explore the feasibility of establishing a repeatable methodology that will help us monitor sustainability by improving the management information collected on demand. This information will feed directly into the legal aid digital transformation programme, which aims to support sustainability by ensuring new digital systems streamline processes and reduce administrative burdens. 5.4 The department will also explore options to routinely monitor the profitability of legal aid firms and interrogate the extent to which this impacts supply and influences market sustainability, alongside considering other factors. The department emphasizes to the Committee the importance of these other factors because future sustainability is shaped not only by fee levels, but also by the experience of providers and clients, the complexity of the system, and associated administrative burdens. Driving improvement in these areas is a core aim of the transformation programme referenced above. 5.5 MoJ will provide an update to the Committee on this work in October 2026. Any future policy decisions based on this will be in the context of the department’s spending review settlement.