Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 19
19
Accepted
MoJ acknowledges cost-shifting of legal aid reforms but struggles to quantify wider impacts
Recommendation
During this inquiry, we asked MoJ what it had done to look at the impact of reducing the scope of legal aid on other parts of government. While MoJ maintained that it is difficult to get an accurate measure of wider costs to the public sector, it acknowledged that it is usually possible to tell if costs have shifted elsewhere. It explained that its post- implementation review of the reforms had identified early legal advice as a “key area of focus” and that it had launched several pilots to better understand the costs and benefits of earlier intervention. It acknowledged that it had “failed fast” in its 2019 pilot – which had aimed to promote early legal advice – due to limited take-up, but stated that it would take lessons from this into future research. MoJ told us that it is working very closely with other departments, such the Department for Health and Social Care and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to identify if earlier intervention would be more beneficial. It agreed that intervening earlier could be a lot cheaper for the system as a whole, if not necessarily for MoJ. We look forward to seeing the outcomes of this work.51
Government Response Summary
The MoJ has engaged with other government departments and has begun discussions with the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government as to where changes in legal aid policy may impact on them.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5. PAC conclusion: The Ministry of Justice has still not made sufficient progress in identifying or addressing wider system costs of its legal aid reforms. 5. PAC recommendation: The Committee recognises that it will not be possible to calculate a precise figure of the costs of the reforms to other areas of government and the justice system. However, the Ministry of Justice should set out in its Treasury Minute response: • how it plans to work with other government departments such as Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Department of Health and Social Care to better understand where reforms may have led to cost-shunting and the potential scale of these costs. This should include looking at the extent to which local authorities are funding immigration legal advice; and • how it intends to work with HM Courts and Tribunals Service to improve available quantitative analysis on the impacts of litigants-in-person on the administration of justice, as recommended in the PAC’s 2015 report. 5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 5.2 The MoJ engages with other government departments as to where changes in legal aid policy may impact on them, including where they may have led to ‘cost-shunting’. MoJ has begun discussions with the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government