Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 20
20
Accepted
Legally aided family mediation assessments remain significantly below pre-reform levels despite voucher scheme.
Recommendation
MoJ had expected that, following LASPO, more people with family law disputes would use mediation instead of court to resolve their disputes. However the number of legally aided mediation assessments (which determine whether a case is suitable for mediation) fell significantly following the reforms.52 MoJ told us that its mediation voucher scheme, aimed at encouraging family mediation, had “plugged the gap” as last year the number of publicly funded mediation cases was higher than before the pandemic.53 However MoJ’s statistics show that legally aided family mediation assessments had remained at around 40% below pre-reform levels even by 2022–23. The Family Mediation Council also noted that the number of legally aided family mediation starts had not recovered.54 Further, MoJ’s analysis of its non-means-tested voucher scheme suggests that only a very small number of people who would have qualified for legal aid had instead used the voucher scheme. So this route would not substantially improve take-up by those who were eligible for legally-aided mediation.55 50 Committee of Public Accounts, Implementing reforms to civil legal aid, Thirty-sixth Report of Session 2014–15, HC 808, 4 February 2015 51 Qq 65–68, 75 52 C&AG’s Report, para 1.19 53 Q 79 54 C&AG’s Report, para 1.19; VMLA0008 55 C&AG’s Report, Figure 5 16 Value for Money from Legal Aid
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