Recommendation 24

Maintaining a supply of qualified staff in the legal aid sector is crucial to ensuring the sustainability of legal aid. However, providers continue to raise concerns about their ability to train and recruit new staff.65 Evidence provided by the Law Society described its research which found that low fee rates leave little room for training and recruitment activities and means that practitioners struggle to grow their firms or secure a future pipeline of talent.66 MoJ acknowledged that recruitment into the sector was an issue. It told us that it was looking at what it could do to reduce barriers to entry into the civil legal aid profession as part of its review of civil legal aid and that the Criminal Legal Aid 56 Q 70 57 C&AG’s Report para 1.15 58 C&AG’s Report para 1.17, Q77 59 Qq 77–78 60 C&AG’s Report, para 3.9 61 Committee of Public Accounts, Implementing reforms to civil legal aid, Thirty-sixth Report of Session 2014–15, HC 808, 4 February 2015 62 Qq 81–83 63 Qq 81–84 64 C&AG’s Report para 3.6 65 C&AG’s Report, para 3.13 66 VMLA0002 Value for Money from Legal Aid 17 Advisory Board (CLAAB) will help to monitor the number of crime practitioners.67 It also assured us that the CLAAB would keep criminal legal aid fees in view and could consider Lord Bellamy’s recommendation that there should be a mechanism for uprating fees on an annual basis. However, MoJ has not yet set out any arrangements for reviewing civil legal aid fees.68 67 Q 91 68 Q 85 18 Value for Money from Legal Aid