Legal aid statistics England and Wales bulletin Jan to Mar 2024 (2024)

Main points

This edition comprises the first release of official statistics for the three-month period from January to March 2024 and the latest statement of all figures for previous periods.It also includes commentary and statistics on providers of legal aid, Central Funds and diversity in legal aid.For technical detail, please refer to our user guide for these statistics.

This publication shows that expenditure across both criminal and civil legal aid has increased year on year and has also increased over the recent quarters.

In the last few quarters, police station claims have increased along with a corresponding uptick in representation orders at the magistrates’ court. Expenditure in the police station increased in the quarter again, as expected, due to higher fees for police station advice that were introduced at the end of 2022. Crown Court workload completions are showing a return to more serious criminal cases with more trials in court increasing showing impacts of more resourcing in the criminal courts. Overall, yearly expenditure in the litigator and advocate graduated fee schemes has reached their highest values since they were introduced. This follows increased sitting days at the Crown Court to reduce the outstanding case backlog.

Overall civil expenditure is increasing driven by a rise in family law expenditure with the number of claims being paid outside of the fixed fee scheme growing due to more time being taken during the court process. Other non-family workload has not recovered to the same extent, and this is driven by a slow recovery of housing work although, again, in the last quarter this has increased. Overall, civil legal aid workload remains below pre-pandemic levels despite upwards trends in domestic violence, mental health and immigration. Within immigration this is driven by increases in court resource to reduce the queue of claims waiting.

Within this annual release, covering both diversity and legal aid provider information, there have been no changes across the schemes in the proportions of legal aid work by sex, disability status, ethnicity and age band of the client. Overall, the number of providers, both providing and contracted to deliver legal aid services, has fallen in recent years. There have been falls in both legal aid areas starting work but the past year has also seen a rise in the number of civil legal aid providers completing work.

Figures are included covering the recently introduced Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service and breakdowns of these numbers are available in the underlying data accompanying this report

Things you need to know

We publish a number of resources alongside the quarterly statistical bulletin. You will see the phrases below at the start of each chapter with a link to the relevant resource:

To understand trends in legal aid as a whole, it is best to begin by looking at annual expenditure figures and then look at trends in both workload and expenditure for each category of legal aid. Summarising workload activity across the whole legal aid system meaningfully within a single number is difficult because of the diversity of services included and different stages in delivery. For example, legal aid work can be measured at the point when an order for legal aid is granted, or after all the legal aid work is completed and the provider has been paid. Expenditure on legal aid is measured differently for different purposes. The three most commonly used measures, shown in Figure 1, are:

• Closed-case expenditure is the measure used for expenditure figures throughout these legal aid statistics. It represents the total value of payments made to legal aid providers in relation to pieces of work that are completed in the period. This basis is comparable to volumes of completed work to which it relates, and to the same fine level of detail. This does not include income received or expenditure in relation to debt write-offs.

• RDEL (Resource Departmental Expenditure Limits) nominal is the main budgeting measure used by government to control current spending, both to set budgets for future years and report on how much has been spent. It represents the value of work carried out in the period better than the closed-case measure but cannot be broken down to such a fine level of detail. This measure does incorporate income and expenditure in relation to debt. ‘Nominal’ here means not adjusted for inflation.

• RDEL real is the RDEL measure adjusted for inflation to make the value of spending in previous years directly comparable with the specified year.

These measures show a large reduction in legal aid expenditure from around 2010-11, mostly due to changes to the scope of civil legal aid introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act from 2013-14, as well as reductions in criminal legal aid workloads and fees payable to legal aid providers. Note figures covering RDEL for 2023-24 will be updated once the LAA accounts are laid before parliament.

Figure 1: Overall annual legal aid expenditure, by closed-case and RDEL nominal and real terms measures (£m), 2005-06 to 2023-24

See interactive breakdown here.

Criminal legal aid

In the magistrates’ court the volume of completed work increased by 7% and associated expenditure increased by 6% when compared to the same period last year

Meanwhile, at the police station, the volume of work increased by 19% with a 21% increase in corresponding expenditure. This is due to higher fees for police station advice introduced at the end of September 2022.

Criminal legal aid can be categorised into Crime Lower and Crime Higher. Crime Lower (covered in our data visualisation tool) includes police station advice, magistrates’ court and prison law. Meanwhile, Crime Higher (also covered in our data visualisation tool) relates to work in the Crown and Higher Courts.

Figure 2: Crime overview, closed case volumes and expenditure for January to March 2024 compared with January to March 2023

See interactive breakdown here.

Although Crown Court work comprises a relatively small portion of criminal legal aid in terms of volume, it accounts for around two thirds of all criminal legal aid expenditure. Conversely, advice relating to the police station makes up around two thirds of workload, but only around a half of expenditure.

Figure 3: Workload in criminal legal aid, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown of crime trend and crime lower.

Figure 4: Expenditure in criminal legal aid, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

Advice and assistance on appeals and civil work associated with crime are excluded from these figures. See interactive breakdown of crime trend and crime lower.

Police station advice

This category made up 69% of the Crime Lower workload between January and March 2024 but only 52% of the expenditure. The workload in this period increased by 19% compared to the previous year, with expenditure increasing by 21% (£6.9m). This is due to a 15% uplift in fees for police station advice introduced at the end of September 2022 as part of the criminal legal aid reforms. This reverses the general downward trend seen over the last few years with a decrease in police station advice workload after 2013-14.

The majority of the police station advice workload (90% in January and March 2024) consists of suspects receiving legal help with a solicitor in attendance at the police station, with the rest mainly consisting of legal advice over the telephone.

Applications and grants for representation in the criminal courts

These figures should be interpreted with caution as they may be revised in subsequent quarters as cases move into the Crown court. The number of orders granted for legally-aided representation in the magistrates’ court increased by 9% this quarter compared to the same quarter of the previous year. This reverses the downward trend of the last 3 years, which was largely driven by Summary Only cases.

Orders granted for legally-aided representation in the Crown Court increased by 13% this quarter compared to last year. Within the legal aid figure, orders relating to either-way offences increased by 17%, while those relating to indictable offences increased by 8%. The proportion of Crown Court applications granted remains at almost 100%.

Magistrates’ court completed work

Legally-aided representation in the magistrates’ court comprised roughly one quarter, (29%) of the workload and around two fifths (41%) of expenditure in Crime Lower between January and March 2024. The volume of completed work (covered in this report) increased by 7% this quarter when compared to the same period of the previous year. Expenditure also increased by 6% (£1.8m).

These changes incorporate the accelerated Criminal legal aid reforms since October 2020 which cover payment for work on sending cases to the Crown Court. This new category shown in the tables accompanying this bulletin had 12,090 completed claims costing around £3.1m this quarter.

Crown Court completed work

Completed work volumes within the litigator (solicitor) fee scheme increased by 2% in January to March 2024 compared to the same period of the previous year, driven mainly by a 2% increase in trial claims.

In the advocate fee scheme, completed claims increased by 9% compared to the same period last year.

Figure 5: Workload in the Crown Court, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

In the litigator fee scheme, expenditure increased by 5% in January to March 2024 compared to the same period of the previous year. In the advocate fee scheme, the value of payments increased by 3% also compared to the same period of the previous year. Figures for expenditure on work completed in the Crown Court should be interpreted with caution as they may be revised in subsequent quarters as claims are assessed further on appeal and further payments added to the value of some completed claims.

The Very High-Cost Case (VHCC) scheme covers those Crown Court cases which would likely last more than 60 days if they were to proceed to trial. Such cases can span several years and, while they may involve small numbers of defendants, the associated expenditure is high in comparison.

There were 5 defendants represented in the VHCC contracts that concluded in the January to March 2024 quarter. Expenditure on this work over the duration of the contracts (i.e. on the closed-case basis) was £2m. This compares with £8.9m of expenditure during the same period across all ongoing claims within the VHCC scheme, suggesting that there is a large backlog of claims in the court system waiting to be finalised with cases started receiving large ongoing payments before completion of the whole claim.

While workload comprises a tiny proportion of legal aid in the Crown Court overall, the VHCC scheme represents around 1% of the cost, although down from 13% in April to May 2013.

Figure 6: Expenditure in the Crown Court, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

The large falls in completed expenditure are a consequence of fewer jury trials completing in the Crown Court during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, as all expenditure across the case will be in the final main bill. Figure 7 below, looking at the litigator fee scheme only, but true of both schemes, shows the impact of falling trials on expenditure. These types of cases were particularly affected, because they need more courtroom space and distancing measures and are likely to include witnesses and members of the public in the jury pool. Trial completed expenditure was more adversely affected than guilty pleas and cracked trials (where a defendant changes their plea before the trial), with litigator fee expenditure much lower.

Figure 7: Litigator Fee Scheme Crown Court expenditure by claim type, April to June 2015 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Prison Law

Workload this quarter increased by 15% compared with the same period in the previous year. This is driven mainly by free standing advice and assistance which increased by 14% when compared to January to March 2023.

Conversely, advocacy assistance at parole board hearings increased by 12% compared to last year, although they have increased by 10% since last quarter (see Figure 8). Advocacy at parole board hearings currently makes up around two fifths(42%) of prison law workload, but a much larger proportion of costs (78%), so expenditure on prison law overall increased by 18% over this period, with a 16% increase in free standing advice and assistance reducing the overall increase.

Since April to June 2020, the workload and expenditure for advocacy assistance at prison discipline hearings has remained low with a change in process for internal prisons hearings continuing since the pandemic. Year-to-year comparisons show that workload increased by 60% and expenditure increased by 89% this quarter compared to last year showing that work is recovering in this area from a low base.

Prison law work still comprises a small portion of the volume (2%) and expenditure (2%) of total criminal legal aid work in January to March 2024.

Figure 8: Prison Law completed workload, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

Figure 9: Prison Law completed expenditure, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

New categories with small volumes are not shown: ‘advocacy assistance at sentence reviews’ and ‘advocacy assistance at Parole Board reconsideration hearings’.

Central Funds

In 2023-24 the total expenditure for Central Funds was £56.8m, a 1% increase compared with the previous year.

This area includes arrangements to meet costs in a variety of scenarios that are not covered by the main criminal legal aid schemes. Some aspects of these are administered by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) and others by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. In 2023-24, the total expenditure for Central Funds was £56.8m. This is a 1% increase compared with the previous year and reflects a levelling off in the volume of court hearings during the financial year.

Figure 10: Central Funds expenditure, 2015-2016 to 2023-24

*Other includes intermediaries, private prosecutions and costs of attending magistrates’ court for witnesses, the qualified legal representative scheme, experts and defendants.

See interactive breakdown here.

A large category of expenditure (£7.6m in 2023-24) relates to the reimbursem*nt of defendants who have been acquitted after privately funding their defence lawyers. The process for assessing and authorising reimbursem*nt of costs from central funds in this scenario is normally triggered when a judge grants a Defence Cost Order (DCO) for legal aid at magistrates’, Crown or higher courts.

Another sizeable area of Central Funds expenditure (£15.1m in 2023-24) covers the costs of lawyers required where a defendant is unrepresented but where the court decides that the defendant must not themselves be allowed to cross-examine a vulnerable witness, with cases involving domestic violence being typical. This situation is covered by the terms of section 38 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. The costs of interpreters and translators in court comprise another area of Central Funds expenditure (£16.9m in 2023-24). The remainder of Central Funds expenditure goes to meet the costs of court intermediaries (£10.7m in 2023-24) ), the qualified legal representative scheme (£0.7m in 2023-24), successful private prosecutions (£3.9m in 2023-24) and towards meeting some of the reasonable costs of attending magistrates’ court for witnesses, experts and defendants (£1.9m in 2023-24).

Civil legal aid

The number of certificates completed increased by 12%, and the associated expenditure increased by 5% over the same period. At a cost of £238.9m in January to March 2024, total civil representation expenditure is the highest it has been since 2011-12.

This is due to the number of claims being paid outside of the fixed fee scheme increasing due to more time being taken during the court process.

Civil legal aid can be categorised by area of law into family and non-family. The category of family legal aid covers all work on both private and public family law and includes work associated with the Children Act, domestic abuse, financial provision and family mediation. Non-family legal aid encompasses all work related to immigration, mental health, housing and other non-family law.

Figure 11: Civil overview, closed case volumes and expenditure for January to March 2024, and comparison with January to March 2023

*Mediation and MIAMS are not included in the Family total.

See interactive breakdown here.

Although the workload for family and non-family cases is similar, comprising 33,789 and 38,068 cases in January to March 2024 respectively, non-family cases make up only around a fifth of total civil legal aid expenditure (19%). Public family legal aid makes up just under two thirds (57%) of family legal aid work and around three quarters (76%) of expenditure.

Legal help and controlled legal representation

In the last quarter, there was a 5% increase in legal help new matter starts compared to the same period of 2023. The volume of completed claims increased by 14% and expenditure increased by 8% in January to March 2024 compared to the same period in 2023 (Figure 12).

The implementation of the LASPO Act in April 2013 resulted in large reductions in legal help workload, with the decline in the overall trend being further exacerbated by the effects of COVID-19, workload now sits at less than one-quarter of pre-LASPO levels.

Figure 12: Completed workload in legal help and controlled legal representation, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Figure 13: Completed workload expenditure in legal help and controlled legal representation, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Family legal help

There was a steep decline in family legal help immediately following the implementation of LASPO Act in April 2013, with a more gradual decline over the last 6 years.

From 1 September 2021, callers to the Civil Legal Advice (CLA) helpline with family issues are no longer referred to specialist telephone advice. In January to March 2024 family legal help starts increased by 3% compared to the same quarter last year. Completed claims increased by 19% and expenditure also increased by 19%.

Family mediation involves an independent and impartial professionally-accredited mediator discussing problems with a divorcing or separating couple. A Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAMs) is an initial meeting between one or both parties and a mediator to see if family mediation could be used to reach agreement without using the courts. MIAMs, family mediation starts, and outcomes decreased significantly following the COVID-19 restrictions in March 2020. Since then, volumes and expenditure rapidly increased to levels temporarily exceeding pre-COVID figures. The volume of MIAMs increased by 2% in the last quarter compared to the previous year and currently stand at just over a third of pre-LASPO levels. Family mediation starts increased by 8% and total outcomes increased by 5%, of which 59% were successful agreements, and are now sitting at around half of pre-LASPO levels.

Figure 14: Family mediation assessments, starts and agreements, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Non-family legal help and controlled legal representation

Controlled legal representation relates to representation at tribunal, but unlike civil representation, the decision on whether to grant legal aid is delegated to providers.

Legal help and controlled legal representation make up 98% of immigration and 94% of mental health legal aid cases.

The LASPO Act 2012 made changes to the scope of legal aid for immigration law, but some areas remained in scope. Workload that remains in the immigration category consists largely of asylum-related work. Having fallen by over 45% in April to June 2020, new matter starts in immigration increased by 9% in January to March 2024 compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Completed claims in immigration increased by 26% in the last quarter compared to the previous year and expenditure increased by 18%.

Within mental health, most funding is spent on providing assistance to sectioned clients appealing the terms of their detention before a mental health tribunal. Mental health new matter starts increased by 4% when comparing the latest quarter to the previous year. Completed claims also increased by 2% and expenditure decreased by 2% over the same period.

More than three quarters (84%) of legal aid housing work volume is made up of legal help. The volume of legally-aided housing work halved between July to September 2012 and July to September 2013 following LASPO. Starts and completed claims nearly halved again during the first COVID-19 lockdown between January to March 2020 and April to June 2020.

Housing advice

Claims under both Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service (HLPAS) which replaced the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme (HPCDS) in August 2023 and the previous scheme are now shown in table 1.2 note that these do not include the category of law covering legal help housing advice found in the 5.1/2/3 series of tables.

There were 7,664 in court claims completed in this quarter under the HLPAS with the expenditure being £0.77m. This compares, as expected, with 7,446 from the previous quarter when combining HLPAS and the remaining HPCDS work with a cost of £0.76m. The new HLPAS early advice service had 838 claims with expenditure of £159k.

Figures covering the recently introduced Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service and breakdowns within this area are available in the underlying data accompanying this report.

Civil representation

The number of civil representation certificates granted in the last quarter increased by 5% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of certificates completed increased by 10%, and the associated expenditure increased by 5% over the same period.

This is due to the number of claims being paid outside of the fixed fee scheme increasing due to more time being taken during the court process. At a cost of around £238.9m in January to March 2024, total civil representation expenditure where met by the LAA is the highest it has been since 2011-12.

Figure 15: Completed workload in civil representation, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Figure 16: Completed workload expenditure in civil representation, April to June 2011 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Non-Family Civil Representation

Non-family certificates completed make up 12% of the total civil representation workload and 9% of the expenditure. There are only a small number of immigration and mental health cases in civil representation as most work in these areas consists of controlled legal representation. A large proportion of certificates completed in this category are for housing work. There has been a gradual decline in housing certificates completed and expenditure since 2014. Although in the latest period, completed certificates increased by 6% compared to the same period of the previous year.

Family civil representation

Certificates granted for family work increased by 4% in January to March 2024 compared to the previous year. Certificates completed increased by 9% and associated expenditure has increased by 4% compared to the same quarter the previous year.

While civil representation for public family law remains available, the LASPO Act removed legal aid for most private family law including issues such as contact or divorce. However, legal aid remains available for such cases where there is a risk of domestic violence or child abuse. The volume and expenditure for closed case domestic violence civil representation increased following COVID-19. More recently, in January to March 2024, certificates completed for domestic violence increased by 8% compared to the same period of the previous year.

In January to March 2024, applications for civil representation supported by evidence of domestic violence or child abuse increased by 10% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of certificates granted via the domestic violence and child abuse gateway increased by 9% over the same period. The proportion of applications granted remained steady at around 70% from the inception of this type of application until the end of 2015, before increasing to around 80%. The provisional figure for the latest quarter is 85%.

Figure 17: Applications received and total certificates granted via the domestic violence and child abuse gateway, April to June 2013 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Judicial reviews

Of all civil representation applications granted, 820 in the last quarter related to a judicial review. The number granted in January to March 2024 increased by 24% compared with the same quarter in 2023. Around a half of judicial reviews were for public law. Judicial review data is available in the detailed CSV file accompanying this bulletin.

Exceptional Case Funding (ECF)

The Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) scheme was introduced as part of LASPO. An ECF application for civil legal services is made where a case falls outside the scope of civil legal aid but the client or conducting solicitor believes failure to provide funding would be a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998.

There were 910 applications for ECF received from January to March 2024. This is a 13% increase from the same quarter last year. 864 (95%) of these were new applications.

Of the 910 ECF applications received between January and March 2024, 95% (865) had been determined by the LAA as of 01 June 2024. 77% (662) of these were granted, 12% (102) were refused and 9% (82) rejected (see Figure 19).

Figure 18: Volume of ECF applications received, April to June 2014 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Among the ECF applications received between January and March 2024, immigration (63%), inquest (15%), and family (12%) remained the most requested categories of law. The increase in ECF applications over the last four years is driven by an increase in immigration applications.

Figure 19: Proportion of ECF determinations by outcome, April to June 2013 to January to March 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

Client diversity

In general, the proportions of legal aid work by sex, disability status, ethnicity and age band of the client in 2023-24 are consistent with 2022-23.

A diversity data file and dashboard are published alongside this year-end bulletin. This breaks down legal aid work by the sex, disability status, ethnicity and age band of the client and, for criminal legal aid, the applicant. In this chapter, this data is compared with mid-year population estimates and 2021 census data from the Office for National Statistics. More detail on disclosure control, methodology and data quality can be found in the User Guide to legal aid statistics. In general, the diversity of legal aid clients compared to 2022-23 is unchanged. This stability in proportions over time can be seen in Table 11.1.

Sex

The profile of criminal legal aid clients in 2023-24 differs from the population average with a greater proportion of males in the former (Figure 20). This reflects the picture across the criminal justice system as a whole and is consistent over time. However, the proportion of females varies with the type of work being claimed for. In 2023-24 14% of magistrates’ court representation work and 16% of police station advice involved females whereas, only 3% of prison law work was for females.

Figure 20: Proportion of legal aid clients by sex, 2023-24

The profile of civil legal aid clients in 2023-24 more closely matches the general population, with some variation by scheme. There is a greater proportion of female clients in Civil Representation (57%), and a slightly smaller proportion in Mediation (51%), ECF (47%) and Legal Help (35%). The proportion of female legal help clients decreased by14 percentage points since 2014-15, driven mainly by immigration where the proportion of females has decreased from roughly one quarter to around a fifth. Within the housing possession court duty scheme, clients broadly match the general population. Overall, the proportions of male and female civil representation clients have remained level over the last few years. Within civil representation, the proportion of males in the domestic violence category has fallen from 9% in 2014-15, to 5% in 2023-24.

Disability

It is difficult to draw firm conclusions for most categories of legal aid on this characteristic because of the relatively high proportion of unknowns.

Crime Higher has the lowest proportion of unknowns, although no detail about the type of disability is recorded (as with Crime Lower). A higher proportion of legally aided Crown Court defendants have a disability (31%) than the population average (18%). Figures show that a higher proportion of legal help clients have disabilities (24%) than the general population (18%), although this difference is likely to be larger due to the high proportion of unknowns. This may be partly because mental health controlled legal representation work is included within legal help. In 2023-24 just under two thirds of the legal help closed case mental health work claims had the client recorded as having a mental health condition. Mediation while having a comparatively low proportion of unknowns has a lower proportion of clients who are disabled (7%) than the population average.

Ethnicity

It is difficult to draw firm conclusions from some of the ethnicity data because of the high proportion for which ethnicity is unknown in most areas. Nevertheless, the proportion of legal help and ECF clients reporting as Black/Asian/Minority Ethnic is much larger than in the general population (Figure 21). This may reflect the fact that controlled legal representation (CLR) for immigration is included within legal help and the majority of ECF grants are for immigration work.

Figure 21: Proportion of legal help and ECF clients by broad ethnic category, 2023-24

The profile of criminal legal aid clients in 2023-24 more closely matches the general population, although the proportion of Black/Asian/Minority Ethnic clients is likely to be larger due to the high proportion of unknowns.

Age

Generally, the age profile of legal aid clients is much less evenly spread than the population average, with a higher proportion of working age clients and a smaller proportion of over 55s. A much greater proportion of criminal legal aid clients are from young adult age groups than in the general population. Crime Lower has the greatest relative proportion of clients under the age of 18, who make up less than a tenth of work completed in 2023-24. Within this, other public law children act proceedings and special children act proceedings both had high proportions of clients under 18; 67% and 49% respectively in 2023-24. The overall age profile of clients in 2023-24 is similar to previous years, although there has been an increase in the proportion of those under 18 in civil representation, increasing by 26% in 2014-15 to 34% in 2023-24.

Legal aid providers

Over the last 5 years there has been a decrease in the number of provider offices completing legal aid work. Meanwhile, over the last year, there has been no real change in the number of provider offices completing legal aid work.

Over the past year, the number of providers that have received payment for civil work increased by 2% and decreased by 1% for criminal work. Figures for providers starting civil work during the period increased by less than 1% and providers starting criminal work decreased by 7%.

Legal aid services in England and Wales are delivered through solicitor firms, Not-for-profit organisations, telephone operators and barristers, most of whom are contracted by the LAA to do legal aid work. This chapter presents the number of providers who have completed work and received associated payments from the LAA in any given quarter or financial year.

A set of provider data files and is published alongside this year-end bulletin. A provider may consist of a large firm with several offices around the country or a single office location at which one or more individuals are based. For more information on data sources, quality and usage please see the User guide to legal aid statistics. The timing with which a completed piece of work and the total payment, or expenditure, associated with it are reported are based on the point at which the main final payment for that piece of work was authorised by the LAA, not the timing of cash transactions.

Figures for a given period may include the value of work conducted in earlier periods and the expenditure represents the total legal aid fee payments for each item of completed work. These figures are not equivalent to providers’ profits, earnings or take-home pay. Figures are based on the provider office location and not the location of the client. A provider may serve clients from other geographic areas as well as that in which the office is located. As this data reflects only the location of the provider office it cannot be used as a reliable indicator of the distribution of the clients or benefits of legal aid, or to infer a precise picture of coverage of legal aid services.

Volume of providers completing and starting work

Across civil legal aid, the number of provider offices completing work decreased by 12% over the last 5 years and a 2% increase in offices completing work the last year. There was a more gradual downward trend for criminal work, although with the last year there is now a 3% decrease in the number of provider offices over the last 5 years and a 1% decrease over the last year. Over the last five years, there has been an decrease in the number of providers starting civil work and a increase in providers starting criminal work during the period. In the last financial year, the number of providers starting civil work increased by less than 1% compared to the previous year and providers starting criminal work decreased by 7%.

Figure 22: Number of provider offices completing criminal legal aid work, 2019-20 to 2023-24

See interactive breakdown here.

Figure 23: Number of provider offices completing civil legal aid work, 2019-20 to 2023-24

See interactive breakdown here.

Official statistics: Legal aid provider contracts

At the start of June 2024, there were 2,039 providers and 3,252 offices contracted to deliver legal aid services.

1,060 of these providers and 1,578 of these offices were contracted to deliver criminal legal aid. Meanwhile, 1,308 providers and 2,150 offices were contracted to deliver civil legal aid.

Changes in these statistics are driven by the commencement of new contracts, where typically we see a peak in provider numbers, which then taper off during the lifetime of the contract. Figures may also change for previous months to reflect changes in contract holders that are processed in retrospect.

Figure 24: Number of providers contracted to deliver legal aid services by area of law, September 2018 to June 2024

See interactive breakdown here.

These statistics relate to the number of legal aid providers in England and Wales. However, instead of reporting the number of providers starting and completing cases, this chapter instead shows the number of legal aid providers and offices that hold either a crime and/or civil contract in each month. As some providers bill their work in months when they do not hold a contract, these numbers are slightly lower than those presented in the previous chapter. These statistics do not include non-Contracted providers who may be operating under an Individual Case Contract. The number of legal aid providers and offices is accurate as at the start of each month.

The LAA uses these statistics to monitor the availability legal aid services over time, in different areas of law and different regions of England Wales. They are nonetheless a proxy measure of capacity only, since they do not indicate the number of practitioners at a given time.

The underlying anonymised data files and an interactive data dashboard are published quarterly alongside this bulletin. This tool additionally shows the number of members and offices for each police station duty solicitor scheme.

For the number of civil legal aid providers reported in Table 9.7, definitions of each category of law under the Standard civil contract 2018 can be found on the gov.uk website.

Geographical figures in the interactive data dashboard are based on the provider office location and not the location of the client. A provider may serve clients from other geographic areas as well as that in which the office is located. As this data reflects only the location of the provider office it cannot be used as a reliable indicator of the distribution of the clients or benefits of legal aid, or as a precise picture of coverage of legal aid services.

As part of the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid covering a complete picture of the legal services provider base (advocacy and litigation) for the publicly-funded criminal justice system in England and Wales, this section discusses the analytical findings from the data sharing agreements between The Law Society, the Bar Council, the Legal Aid Agency, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Ministry of Justice. The commentary on the analysis is built upon the Summary Information on Publicly Funded Criminal Legal Services.

The figures provide an analysis of the publicly-funded criminal legal system, detailing insights into the characteristics of law firms, their solicitors and barristers that received publicly-funded legal aid case payments. The analysis covers financial year 2014-15 to 2021-22 and are summarised in tables 12.1 to 12.3.

The data collected cover solicitor firms (see interactive dashboard), trainees and solicitor (see interactive dashboard), duty solicitors (see interactive dashboard) and barristers (see interactive dashboard).

Firms that were identified, through the data matching, as receiving criminal legal aid payments during the financial years covered are referred to as criminal legal aid firms. The criminal legal aid fee income shown in the tables includes disbursem*nts and VAT when applicable for the matched criminal legal aid firms.

For more detailed breakdowns and information on criminal legal aid firms see the interactive dashboard.

Further information

National Statistics status

National Statistics are accredited official statistics. These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in December 2016. They comply with the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’. Note that accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Official Statistics

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Contact

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:

Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to the Data & Analysis directorate of the Ministry of Justice:

Tables and data

We publish a number of resources alongside the quarterly statistical bulletin:

• A set of interactive tables, which give further detail and full time-series for each scheme under both crime and civil
• An ods spreadsheet download for all tables, which provide full time-series for each scheme.
• Also an accessible version of the ods spreadsheet download for all tables, which also provide full time-series for each scheme.
• Main data and Civil detailed data: Detailed files to enable independent analysis, provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format.
• Provider contracts data: Criminal and Civil legal aid provider contracts data are provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format.
• Data Share data: Criminal legal aid data share data provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format.
• Diversity data and Provider data: Client characteristics data and Providers starts and completions by area and legal aid schemes are provided in .csv (Comma delimited) format, please refer to the latest annual publication.

Help

Further information about these statistics is available at the following links:

• Index of data in Legal aid statistics: An index to the more detailed data published in the .ods file format, lists of available data from Legal Aid systems and guidance on how to work with the more detailed data.
• User Guide to legal aid statistics: This provides comprehensive information about data sources and quality as well as key legislative changes.
• Quality Statement: This provides detail on how legal aid statistics meet user needs.

Web tools

Our interactive data visualisation tools can be found at the following links:

• List of data visualisation tools: A list of the web-based tools across the legal aid statistics release.
• Main visualisation tool: A web-based tool allowing the user to view and customise charts and tables based on the published statistics.

Next update: 26 September 2024

URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/legal-aid-statistics

© Crown copyright Produced by the Ministry of Justice

Alternative formats are available on request from statistics@justice.gov.uk.