Loss of early legal advice
Lack of understanding by the Ministry of Justice regarding the impact of removing early legal advice in various areas.
Source spread
Where this theme appears
This theme appears across 7 independent accountability sources, so the source mix matters as much as the headline total.
2 inquiry recs
103 committee recs
4 NAO recs
7 DHR recs
2 CJINI reports
Browse by source
Source-grouped records are useful for tracing where a concern came from. Large sections show the 50 strongest matches for that source; counts still show the full theme total.
Inquiry recommendations(2)
78 — Revise Victims Code for CSA victims
Recommendation: The Ministry of Justice should revise the Victims' Code to make clear that victims and survivors of child sexual abuse must be advised by the police that: 1. They are entitled to seek civil compensation through the civil courts and, …
Gov response: The Ministry of Justice is in the process of updating the Victims’ Code and the proposed changes, including about accessing support, seeking compensation and where to go for additional information and assistance in applying, are …
Accepted in part
LAMI-36 — Require legal advice before emergency child harm action, ensure 24-hour availability
Recommendation: No emergency action on a case concerning an allegation of deliberate harm to a child should be taken without first obtaining legal advice. Local authorities must ensure that such legal advice is available 24 hours a day.
Unknown
Select committee recommendations(103)— showing 50 strongest matches
#25 —
Recommendation: We also asked about differences between schemes in access to legal support. The Home Office told us that it was struck by the contrast between Windrush and the Horizon schemes in access to funded legal advice, explaining that Windrush was …
#24 —
Recommendation: Sir Alan Bates told us that the Horizon schemes had become complex and legalistic in nature, increasing both the time taken to resolve cases and the cost of administering schemes60. He acknowledged that the Horizon schemes were intended to be …
#57 —
Recommendation: Children in care and those with care experience are particularly vulnerable to financial instability and legal aid is crucial to allow them access to justice. The Government must urgently act to increase provision in legal aid deserts. Where legal aid …
Response status not verified
#56 —
Recommendation: Children’s right to independent advocacy must be strengthened. Although there is a statutory entitlement to advocacy services, many individuals are unaware of this or unable to secure advocacy in an appropriate timeframe. We support the recommendation of the Independent Review …
Response status not verified
#49 —
Recommendation: People in care, their carers, care leavers, and people receiving support from the children’s social care system often find it difficult or do not know how to secure legal advice and advocacy services, and they are often afraid of retaliation …
Response status not verified
#44 —
Recommendation: Legal aid must be available sufficiently early in the process to allow for cases to be properly assessed and prepared. The Ministry of Justice must set out how it will address funding the legal work required on these cases prior …
Response status not verified
#42 —
Recommendation: If the Hillsborough Bill implementation is successful, legal aid must be available both sufficiently early in a case, and at a rate which is comparable both to that of public authorities and other fee schemes. (Conclusion, Paragraph 126)
Response status not verified
#41 —
Recommendation: Accepting there is a lack of government appetite to reintroduce broad categories of law back into the legal aid scheme, the Ministry of Justice should reduce barriers to providers giving holistic early legal advice. For example, it should allow providers …
Response status not verified
#40 —
Recommendation: The restrictive scope of the legal help scheme undermines early intervention, causing legal issues to escalate and contributing to increased harm and use of resources. (Conclusion, Paragraph 119)
Response status not verified
#32 —
Recommendation: The reduction in the number of legal aid providers, both nationally and within particular areas of law and geographical regions, is sufficient to demonstrate that legal aid service provision is insufficient. There is no evidence to suggest that demand for …
Response status not verified
#31 —
Recommendation: Legal aid capacity is significantly constrained across all areas of social welfare law and mediation, and recent targeted increases in immigration and housing fees are unlikely to appreciably increase provision. We are not convinced that actions the Ministry of Justice …
Response status not verified
#20 —
Recommendation: In furtherance of its strategy to combat violence against women and girls, the government should ensure that a party is not left unrepresented in family proceedings involving domestic abuse, solely because they are in low-paid work rather than in receipt …
Response status not verified
#19 —
Recommendation: The government must commit to retaining “passporting” for civil legal aid in relation to those state welfare payments which are currently passported. This is crucial not only to protect access to justice, but also to minimise administrative burden on legal …
Response status not verified
#18 —
Recommendation: Passported benefits for legal aid are vital both in ensuring those of limited means can access services, and in easing the administrative burden on legal aid providers. It would be a wasteful duplication to require providers to means-assess potential clients …
Response status not verified
#17 —
Recommendation: To prevent the ‘justice gap’ growing further in future, the government must institute a mechanism of regular uprating of the means test in line with pre-defined criteria. This could involve, for example, pegging the income threshold to median earnings. (Recommendation, …
Response status not verified
#16 —
Recommendation: As with criminal legal aid, the government should immediately implement the Means Test Review and uprate the proposed thresholds to reflect inflation and updated cost-of-living data since the review’s baseline year. It should publish the methodology and revised thresholds alongside …
Response status not verified
#15 —
Recommendation: The proportion of adults in England and Wales eligible for civil legal aid is unacceptably low and misaligned with its policy goals. There is overwhelming evidence of a growing “justice gap” in England and Wales, whereby people are both ineligible …
Response status not verified
#9 —
Recommendation: The government should liaise with the police and relevant stakeholders, such as The Law Society, to identify areas where shortages of duty solicitors are negatively impacting the administration of justice. The Lord Chancellor should use their powers under the Legal …
Response status not verified
#8 —
Recommendation: Targeted increases to some police station fixed fees are unlikely to be sufficient to ensure the sustainability of the service. The government has said that its intervention to increase funding for criminal duty solicitor schemes has put them on more …
Response status not verified
#6 —
Recommendation: The government must address how it will ensure defendants are not sentenced to a year or more in prison without any legal representation. This might include, but is not limited to: a. Implementing recommendation 29 of the Independent Review of …
Response status not verified
#2 —
Recommendation: The government should immediately implement the Means Test Review and uprate the proposed thresholds to reflect inflation and updated cost-of-living data since the review’s baseline year. It should publish the methodology and revised thresholds alongside its implementation so that providers …
Response status not verified
#1 —
Recommendation: The eligibility threshold for criminal legal aid in the magistrates’ court is shockingly low and is contributing to increasing levels of self-representation. It is a clear denial of justice that an individual working for the national minimum wage may earn …
Response status not verified
#48 —
Recommendation: The government must amend the legal aid means test in the magistrates’ court so that anyone charged with an either-way offence with the possibility of a sentence of 12 months or more in custody is subject to the same threshold …
Response status not verified
#24 —
Recommendation: The government has acknowledged that, as more cases are dealt with in the magistrates’ courts, a greater proportion of defendants are likely to be ineligible for criminal legal aid than would have been had their case been heard in the …
Response status not verified
#16 —
Recommendation: We urge the Ministry of Justice and the Legal Aid Agency to continue to be creative as to how legal aid is administered so that the legal professions are not further damaged by inflexible processes and contractual requirements on top …
Response attribution not verified
#14 —
Recommendation: We recommend that the Ministry of Justice considers further grants for law centres and other not-for-profit legal services providers that are at risk of collapse. The Ministry of Justice should report back to us with its decision and provide its …
Response attribution not verified
#9 —
Recommendation: The Legal Aid Agency has made changes to help the legal professions. For example, it has made it easier to claim interim and hardship payments, aligned some fees for remote work with those for in-person work, and halted pursuit of …
Response attribution not verified
#7 —
Recommendation: Law centres and other not-for-profit legal advice providers are also at great risk.
Response attribution not verified
#6 —
Recommendation: Small high street firms are particularly at risk from the effects of coronavirus restrictions.
Response attribution not verified
#3 —
Recommendation: Publicly funded legal services providers were already under stress before coronavirus.
Response attribution not verified
#24 —
Recommendation: We suggest that the civil legal aid system needs an updated version of the Green Form scheme, which was introduced in 1973, that would allow individuals to understand their rights and be directed to the services that are most appropriate …
Response attribution not verified
#23 —
Recommendation: The Committee welcomes the introduction of the Family Mediation Voucher Scheme. It is a positive step and recognises that more needs to be done to help separating parents. We believe that if early legal advice was available alongside mediation, this …
Response attribution not verified
#22 —
Recommendation: The Government should consider whether the model of the possession duty scheme should be used in other areas of the civil justice system where there are significant numbers of litigants in person. Non-means tested advice at court on the day …
Response attribution not verified
#21 —
Recommendation: The Government should take a whole justice system approach to the reform of the civil legal aid framework. The provision of early advice can help to make the courts The Future of Legal Aid 69 work more effectively.
Response attribution not verified
#23 — Stakeholders warn MoJ's actions on legal aid sustainability are insufficient and too slow
Recommendation: 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 …
Response attribution not verified
#20 — Previous committee highlighted MoJ's slow progress reviewing legal aid system sustainability
Recommendation: Our predecessor Committee’s 2024 report on legal aid stated that MoJ had been slow to initiate and complete its large-scale reviews of the sustainability of both the criminal and civil legal aid systems. It raised particular concerns around the civil …
Response attribution not verified
#18 — Ministry of Justice lacks comprehensive understanding of legal aid reforms' impact on local authorities
Recommendation: We asked MoJ what work it had done to better understand the effects of its legal aid reforms on local authorities and their legal advice services. MoJ said that it has surveyed local authorities to understand where they were providing …
Response attribution not verified
#17 — MoJ lacks understanding of early legal advice removal and litigant-in-person impacts.
Recommendation: MoJ’s Treasury Minute response indicated that it had begun discussions with the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG, or the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, as it was then called) to understand whether local authorities were …
Response attribution not verified
#16 — MoJ's understanding of wider legal aid reform costs remains disappointingly insufficient after a decade.
Recommendation: For a decade, this Committee and its predecessors have urged MoJ to get a better understanding of the wider costs of its legal aid reforms. A 2015 report noted the lack of analysis MoJ had undertaken of the wider impacts …
Response attribution not verified
#5 — Require MoJ to routinely review profitability and sustainability for all types of legal aid.
Recommendation: We remain unconvinced that MoJ has put in place sufficient measures to ensure the future sustainability of the legal aid market. In its 2024 report, this Committee raised concerns that while MoJ was undertaking large scale reviews of both criminal …
Response attribution not verified
#4 — Require MoJ to detail legal aid reform cost impact on local authorities and courts.
Recommendation: More than ten years since the legal aid reforms, MoJ has still not demonstrated a sufficient understanding of the additional costs of legal aid reforms, particularly the impact of litigants in person. A decade ago our predecessors urged MoJ to …
Response attribution not verified
#49 —
Recommendation: The Exceptional Case Funding scheme should be reformed in the following ways: a. The Ministry of Justice must regularly review the types of cases that obtain Exceptional Case Funding. Cases which are consistently granted funding should be included within the …
Response status not verified
#39 —
Recommendation: Complex legal aid scope for civil legal aid matters creates confusion among both professionals and clients. It also contributes to system inefficiency and undermines provider sustainability. (Conclusion, Paragraph 118)
Response status not verified
#30 —
Recommendation: Despite its efforts, the Ministry of Justice lacks a sufficient understanding of legal aid demand, and consequently its current measures of service coverage are invalid. The Legal Aid Agency, due to the powers delegated to it as an executive agency, …
Response status not verified
#29 —
Recommendation: We welcome the Ministry of Justice’s efforts to improve its monitoring of unmet demand. However, the evidence laid out above is clear and compelling enough for action to be taken now to address supply failures. (Conclusion, Paragraph 100)
Response status not verified
#28 —
Recommendation: The government should use its work on civil legal aid demand to target its interventions by area and category of law. In line with criminal legal aid, the government should directly fund training schemes for the most underserved categories of …
Response status not verified
#27 —
Recommendation: The government should, within 12 months, publish a civil legal aid workforce strategy. This should cover recruitment, retention, training capacity, succession planning and regional shortages. (Recommendation, Paragraph 88)
Response status not verified
#26 —
Recommendation: The recent government approach of targeted intervention in particular areas of civil law is insufficiently proactive, meaning that future provision of civil legal aid is not on a stable footing. The government is not thinking 59 strategically about its future …
Response status not verified
#25 —
Recommendation: Insufficient numbers of young lawyers are undertaking legally aided work in civil and family law. Firms lack capacity to train new staff or invest in new technology. (Conclusion, Paragraph 86)
Response status not verified
#23 —
Recommendation: Uplifting other civil legal aid fee schemes in line with housing and immigration increases is the minimum requirement to arrest the current lack of service provision and ongoing decline in the provider base. Fee increases should be retrospective, meaning they …
Response status not verified
NAO audit recommendations(4)
Government’s management of legal aid
MoJ should work with others to improve its understanding of the costs and benefits of legal issues removed from scope during legal aid reforms, to ensure that changes have not led to less efficient public spending. MoJ should focus on …
Accepted
Government’s management of legal aid
MoJ should work with others to improve its understanding of the costs and benefits of legal issues removed from scope during legal aid reforms, to ensure that changes have not led to less efficient public spending. MoJ should focus on …
Accepted
Government’s management of legal aid
MoJ should work with others to improve its understanding of the costs and benefits of legal issues removed from scope during legal aid reforms, to ensure that changes have not led to less efficient public spending. MoJ should focus on …
Rejected
Transforming courts and tribunals: a progress update
• set out what other sources of information it will use to assess ‘access to justice’ alongside travel time; and
Accepted
Independent reviews(24)
Jones: Patronising Disposition Review — Rec 9i
Publicly-funded legal representation should be made available to bereaved families at inquests at which a public authority is to be legally represented. This could be achieved through amendments to the Ministry of Justice's Lord Chancellor's Exceptional Funding Guidance (Inquests) and should not need primary legislation. The requirement for a means …
Policing & Security
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 4.9
The Legal Services Commission should introduce a new magistrates graduated court fee as described in paragraph 43 of Chapter 4. The Legal Services Commission should collect data to develop proxies.The Legal Services Commission should also collect data to develop an alternative basis for pricing cases that escape. The graduated fee …
Justice & Legal
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 4.8
The Legal Services Commission should introduce a revised magistrates’ court standard fee scheme including an element of travelling and waiting (as described in paragraphs 40 to 41 of Chapter 4 and set out in Annex 4.3). The fees in Annex 4.3 should be subject to consultation and should be introduced …
Justice & Legal
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 4.7
The Legal Services Commission should introduce a new police station procurement scheme , based on fixed fees per case that include travel and waiting, as described in paragraphs 36 to 39 of Chapter 4 and set out in Annex 4.2. The fees set out in Annex 4.2 should be subject …
Justice & Legal
Bellamy Review — Rec 9
Pre-charge engagement should be remunerated. The preparation necessary to determine whether pre-charge engagement is appropriate or not should be remunerated irrespective of whether pre-charge engagement subsequently takes place. Similarly work reasonably necessary to maintain contact with the police and/or the client in the period between the initial police station arrest/interview …
Justice & Legal
Bellamy Review — Rec 8
The MOJ should, in conjunction with the Advisory Board as appropriate, and in collaboration with the police and Home Office, initiate a detailed study of the operation and effectiveness of advice and assistance in the police station, including assembling more detailed data, for example on whether the take-up of such …
Justice & Legal
Bellamy Review — Rec 7
The remuneration payable for police station advice and assistance should be restructured along the lines of the Magistrates' Court remuneration scheme namely a lower standard fee, a higher standard fee, and a non-standard fee in exceptional cases, so as to reflect better the different circumstances of cases, improve quality, and …
Justice & Legal
Taylor Youth Justice Review — Rec 12
Children should not be required to make a decision about seeing a solicitor at interview. There should be a presumption that a solicitor is called and legal advice is provided, unless the child expressly asks not to. (Paragraph 69)
Justice & Legal
Leveson Criminal Courts Review — Rec 29
I recommend that a Statutory Instrument be laid in Parliament to increase income thresholds for legal aid in the magistrates’ court in line with the current Crown Court criteria for sentencing in either way cases.
Justice & Legal
Modern Slavery Act Review — Rec 72
For all potential victims of modern slavery, it is essential that defence lawyers are aware of the statutory defence and advise their clients to disclose at the earliest possible stage if they are a victim of trafficking or modern slavery. This is even more important in the cases of children. …
Justice & Legal
Accepted
Angiolini Review — Rec 45
Written information about sources of specialist support and legal advice should be passed to every family by the Coroner’s Officer at the very first contact. The Police and IPCC should also be subject to a legal obligation to advise the family of this right immediately on advising the family of …
Policing & Security
Accepted
Angiolini Review — Rec 35
The Coroner and IPCC staff should tell families immediately following the death of their loved one of the right to independent free specialist legal advice, the benefit of securing advice from the earliest possible stage and the right to representation of a pathologist at the post mortem or to request …
Policing & Security
Accepted
Angiolini Review — Rec 33
In order to facilitate their effective participation in the whole process there should be access for the immediate family to free, non-means tested legal advice, assistance and representation from the earliest point following the death and throughout the pre- inquest hearings and Inquest hearing.
Policing & Security
Accepted
Lammy Review — Rec 9
The Home Office, the MoJ and the Legal Aid Agency should work with the Law Society and Bar Council to experiment with different approaches to explaining legal rights and options to defendants. These different approaches could include, for example, a role for community intermediaries when suspects are first received in …
Justice & Legal
Accepted
Jones: Patronising Disposition Review — Rec 9ii
At the fresh Hillsborough inquests, the Home Office provided money to South Yorkshire Police to fund their legal expenditure. Importantly, however, Theresa May when Home Secretary placed conditions on the funding she provided to the police in order that it could not be used to fund legal representation more advantageous …
Policing & Security
Taylor Youth Justice Review — Rec 22
The Ministry of Justice should review the fee structure of cases heard in the Youth Court in order to raise their status and improve the quality of legal representation for children. When this is complete the Bar Standards Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority should introduce mandatory training for all …
Justice & Legal
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 4.31
The procurement strategy in the category of mental health should be kept under close review by the Legal Services Commission, as it will need to take account of future changes in mental health legislation, and if there is a move towards more clients being cared from at home and not …
Justice & Legal
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 3.7
It is important that the Commission enable community legal advice networks to be developed in a pragmatic and flexible fashion that makes sense locally, as in some areas there could be informal networks that already exist and might be built upon, whereas elsewhere the networks would be a fresh development. …
Justice & Legal
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 3.5
It is important that there is not one model for community legal advice centres, and the Legal Services Commission allows centres to develop in a pragmatic and flexible fashion that best suits their potential clients in the area where they are located (including sub-contracting service delivery where necessary).
Justice & Legal
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 3.4
The Legal Services Commission should explore the possibility of firms and not for profit agencies expanding into other categories of civil and family law. Depending on the area and the nature of the service, suppliers should be encouraged to develop services across a wider area of categories of civil and …
Justice & Legal
Carter Legal Aid Review — Rec 3.3
The Legal Services Commission should consider whether and how a small number of criminal defence practitioners could continue to provide niche services when the new General Criminal Contract arrangements are implemented in October 2007. Consideration should be given to how sub-contacting arrangements can be developed for referrals from firms who …
Justice & Legal
Bellamy Review — Rec 3
(i) The MOJ should consider, in conjunction with the Advisory Board as appropriate, the extent of unmet need in criminal legal aid in Wales or England, for example in terms of particular geographical areas (whether rural locations, small towns or inner cities), particular types of user (such as young suspects/defendants, …
Justice & Legal
Modern Slavery Act Review — Rec 77
Finally, professional bodies need to reflect in their guidance to members that where there is evidence that someone might be a victim of trafficking, it is likely to be in their client’s best interests to disclose this immediately, and the Crown must be given adequate time to conduct their enquiry.
Justice & Legal
Accepted
Modern Slavery Act Review — Rec 67
The Government should keep under review the effect of the new Legal Aid contracts and how they are operating in practice [in respect of modern slavery]. The Independent Anti- Slavery Commissioner should monitor the experience of victims of modern slavery in accessing legal aid and raise concerns or challenges with …
Justice & Legal
Accepted
Domestic Homicide Reviews(7)
Leeds — recommendation 2.2
Safer Leeds will consider raising the impact on domestic abuse victim of legal aid changes through the Leeds Domestic Violence & Abuse Board.
Safer Leeds Partnership
South Warwickshire — recommendation 5
South Warwickshire Community Safety Partnership to liaise with the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority and the Law Society to raise awareness of potential missed opportunities and to encourage the training of Solicitors acting in the divorce arena of law so as to enable victims of domestic abuse to receive appropriate legal advice …
South Warwickshire Community Safety Partnership
Birmingham — recommendation 3
The Community Safety Partnership should seek further information from the local law society as to whether accessing legal aid by victims of domestic abuse is a barrier to using civil proceedings to restrain perpetrators of domestic abuse.
Community Safety Partnership
Oldham — recommendation 7
The Oldham Community Safety Partnership should share the findings from this DHR with the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, and the Ministry of Justice, to highlight the impact for victims of domestic abuse who are unable to access legal aid, so that this can inform the ongoing review …
Oldham Community Safety Partnership
Rochdale — recommendation 6
Early referral for legal advice required. An earlier referral for Legal advice should have taken place in this case following non- engagement with the safeguarding enquiry and ongoing risk/concerns on 20.8.2021.
Rochdale Adult Care
Rochdale Borough Council
Rochdale — recommendation 5
Where subjects are felt to be making unwise decisions, services are struggling to engage them, and alcohol or substance misuse, and or coercion and control may be having an adverse impact on mental capacity, legal advice must be routinely sought to ensure all legal options have been explored.
Rochdale Safer Communities Partnership
Somerset — recommendation 3
Where a vulnerable adult is the victim of control and coercion, SCC ASC should ensure that Social Workers have access to prompt legal advice on the processes to ensure the protection of individual rights under the Human Rights and Mental Capacity Acts, and also now, the Care Act. This should …
Somerset County Council Adult Social Care
CJINI inspection reports(2)
Criminal Legal Aid Processing: The effectiveness of the Legal Aid Management System in supporting the achievement of strategic business objectives and improved service delivery
Prosecution and the Courts, Legal Aid and Services
Jun 2022
An Inspection of the Use of Legal Services by the Criminal Justice System
Prosecution and the Courts, Legal Aid and Services
Jun 2011