21.52With Michael Gove as Justice Secretary there was the promise, which he in the main kept, that the legal aid budget would not face any more cuts.1‘“Do more unpaid work”, Gove tells lawyers’, The Times, 24 June 2015. We have had no indication as yet from his successor Liz Truss if she will continue with this policy. At the moment the signs are mixed as the consultation on the litigators fees could be interpreted as the at the Ministry of Justice is intending to take a bite out of the legal aid budget, while its decisions on the domestic violence regulations and the merits test can be interpreted more optimistically.

21.53At the end of 2016, Legal Action published a report on access to justice and the continuing effect of LASPO changes. The report brought together statistical and other evidence on the impact of the changes to legal aid and argued that the civil justice system is in freefall due to the lack of availability of legal advice for members of the public who cannot afford to pay for it.2Lucy Logan Green and James Sandbach. ‘Justice in freefall’, December 2016/January 2017 Legal Action 8.

21.54Perhaps the most startling statistic included in the report is that the number of Legal Help cases had fallen by 75 per cent since the implementation of the cuts in April 2013. The report also revealed that even for those areas of work which remained in the scope of the civil legal aid scheme there had been drastic reductions in the take-up of cases. For example, the number of housing cases for both Legal Help and Controlled Legal Representation has reduced by 18 per cent compared to last year. LAG believes this is mainly caused by the lack of solicitors and advice agencies available or willing to take on the work.

21.55The Law Society argues that while the number of legal aid contracts has not significantly reduced due to LASPO, the cuts to scope ‘have resulted in the downsizing of departments reliant on legal aid work and consequent redundancies. Some firms have closed and others have survived by shifting their focus to privately funded work.’3Impact of changes to legal aid under Part 1 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, March 2015, p30, House of Commons. The impact of the Act has been even more brutal on the not for profit agencies as LAG’s report revealed they have lost 77 per cent of the income they used to receive from Legal Help. Research published by the Ministry of Justice shows that these and other budget reductions have led to an over 50 per cent reduction in the number of centres in recent years.4Survey of not for profit legal advice providers in England and Wales, Ministry of Justice, 2015.

21.56Amnesty International, a charity better known for its work in exposing injustice abroad, published a report which expressed deep concerns about the impact of the legal aid cuts. The report, ‘Cuts that Hurt: the impact of legal aid cuts in England on access to justice’, was released in October 2016 and concluded that LASPO cuts had ‘stripped away a vital element of support for a fair and just legal system’ in England and Wales. In November 2016, the Labour Party published an interim report on access to justice in which it noted the ‘staggering drop’ in the number of legal aid cases after the implementation of LASPO.5The crisis in the justice system in England and Wales: The Bach Commission on Access to Justice – interim report, November 2016.

21.57A post-legislative review of LASPO was announced by Oliver Heald in January 2017. LAG understands that the Ministry of Justice will be setting out its plans for this to the Justice Select Committee by May 2017. The Select Committee will then respond, after which the Ministry of Justice will confirm the timetable and process for the review.

21.58For organisations concerned with access to justice policy, the review is seen as an important opportunity to try and influence the Government. Ministers need to be persuaded to put some capacity back into the civil legal aid system, as access to justice is indeed in freefall and it is the poorest and most vulnerable who are being hardest hit.