Corporate report

Legal Aid Agency Business Plan 2023 to 2024

Published 12 September 2023

Applies to England and Wales

1. Foreword

1.1 Legal Aid Agency Chief Executive Jane Harbottle

I am excited to present the 2023-24 business plan which sets out our priorities and plans for the year ahead and highlights some of our many achievements of the last year.

Change is a constant and I am proud of how the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) continues to seek to make improvements to our services, to learn from the experiences of our service users and to rapidly respond to the policies set by the government.

Our most important challenge last year was to support the legal aid market and the department’s objective on swift access to justice by rapidly implementing the changes required to both advocate and litigator fee scheme payments, as agreed by the government, in response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR). This has been a major achievement, in partnership with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), to deliver complex change effectively and at pace.

Our approach has ensured that legal aid payments were made accurately and on time throughout the year, while also maintaining our excellent levels of service delivery for processing legal aid applications.

Supporting and delivering

The LAA’s achievements are due to the people who work here. Our 2022 People Survey engagement score was 68%, keeping us up within the top 10 organisations within the whole of the Civil Service. We have learned from our experiences during the pandemic and sustained our hybrid working model in a way that supports our staff and enables effective service delivery. We have also continued to challenge ourselves over the best ways to recruit and retain great people in a competitive labour market, to bring together the diverse backgrounds, skills and perspectives we need to succeed.

There is much we have achieved as an agency and in partnership across the legal aid market and wider justice system. This has not been straightforward and one of our biggest challenges has been to maintain service delivery while ensuring we protect public money, through our efforts to reduce payments made in error. In 2022-23 our overall net error rate was 0.96%

Looking ahead, change will continue to be at the front of our minds as we work to:

• support the review of civil legal aid

• continue to implement the actions required in respond to CLAIR

• prepare to implement the outcome of the Means Test Review (MTR)

• expand our digital Apply service for civil and criminal legal aid applications

These are just some of the many changes and activities that the LAA will be working on for the year ahead. The agency has shown it can deliver change and I know that not only can we do it, but we can do it better. During 2023-24, I will be working with my leadership team to ensure that the LAA has a clear vision for change. We need all parts of the agency to have what they need to make change happen quickly and effectively. This is essential if we are to deliver even more for the people who use and rely on the vital services that we provide.

There is much to do, and I am looking forward to delivering against our plan.

2. Introduction

2.1 We are part of the Ministry of Justice

The work of the LAA contributes toward the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) strategic outcomes, enablers and their shared values

2.2 LAA vision

To support swift access to justice, through working with others to achieve excellence in the delivery of legal aid.

2.3 LAA mission

Work with providers of our services to ensure fair, prompt and effective access to civil and criminal legal aid and advice in England and Wales. We work across the whole of the justice system to make sure our services meet the needs of everyone who uses them. This includes the most vulnerable in our society.

2.4 LAA strategic enablers 2023-24

Our operational effectiveness as an organisation will be founded on the following capabilities:

• user-centred

• right decisions, first time

• simplified and sustainable

• responsive, diverse, learning organisation

3. Our achievements in 2022-23

As we look back on milestones and performance areas for the last year against our strategic objectives, we consider:

• how well we performed against targets

• whether our performance improved on the previous year

4. Strategic objective 1 – service delivery

‘Delivering access to justice through legal aid services that meet the needs of our users’

4.1 Strategic enablers

Following a user-centred approach in the way we work with our stakeholders and customers, striving to ensure we make right decisions first time

4.2 Milestones

status	target
15 out of 18 achieved	ensure all service targets for 2022-23 are met to support the effective operation of the justice system

achieved

policy reforms for implementation in 2022-23 are delivered through revised business processes and digital development ensuring continued, effective delivery of all legal aid services

achieved

our Public Defender Service will provide access to justice for clients through continual coverage of services that meet their needs

refocused*

launch of our communications strategy with user needs at the heart and support for provider resources such as our training website and customer service webchats

*Focused on a user-centred response, our communication approach has been developed during the year. Working across our communication channels, we have:

• developed our programme of webinars through our refreshed legal aid learning website

• continually reviewed our social media channels to support messaging

• engaged with providers through networks and our regular e-alert

4.3 Performance indicators

Getting legal aid

	target	status achieved
civil applications	85%	93% in 20 days – minus 1% point on 2021/22

crime applications	90%	100% in 2 days – matching performance in 2021-22

exceptional complex cases	80%	79% in 25 days – minus 3% points on 2021-22

civil application appeals	90%	92% where an external adjudicator not required, in 20 working days – plus 2% points on 2021-22

Paying for legal aid

	target	status achieved
bill payments	95%	99% in 20 days matching performance of 2021-22

civil billing appeals	95%	100% where an external adjudicator not required, in 20 working days – matching performance in 2021-22

Contacting us

	target	call handling
civil and crime calls	75%	we answered 82% of civil calls and 91% of crime calls in 5 minutes or less – both minus 1% point on 2021-22

Public Defender Service	90%	we accepted 99% of duty solicitor calls matching performance in 2021-22

When you want to discuss our services, or challenge decisions

	target	responses
first and second tier complaints	90%	we responded to 99% of complaints in 20 working days – minus 1% point on 2021-22

5. Strategic objective 2 – finance and efficiency

‘Modernise our services, delivering value for money for taxpayers’

5.1 Strategic enablers

Focused on a ‘right decisions, first time’, approach and simplified and sustainable services

5.2 Milestones

status	target
achieved	resources are able to work effectively and are deployed in support of the government’s agenda for the Civil Service

partially*

continue development and rollout of our transformation work strands

achieved

continue to support roll-out of the Common Platform programme

achieved

work closely with MOJ to (a) provide operational input into the government’s response to the independent review of criminal legal aid (CLAIR) and the means test review (b) support implementation of the CLAIR response

*We will continue the further expansion of Apply to other case types and other efficiency driven change to make our services more user-centred and efficient. This will include expanding the service to cover public law cases.

Crime Apply is due to go through an independent digital assurance assessment at the end of July 2022. This will be conducted by the Government Digital Service, which is responsible for assessing public-facing digital services.

If Crime Apply successfully passes the assessment, it will move to the next phase of development known as ‘private beta’. This will involve live testing of the system with a small number of providers. It will also be possible to process domestic abuse, section 8 and public law applications through Apply.

5.3 Performance indicators

Accuracy of our payments

Our net error rate for 2022-23 was 0.96% compared with 0.77% in 2021-22. We carry out core testing throughout the year to arrive at these figures.

Our funding and administrative spending remained within budgets. We achieved this through forecasting and ensuring COVID-19 contingency arrangements were proportionate.

6. Strategic objective 3 – people

Become a truly diverse and inclusive employer of choice

6.1 Strategic enablers

Looking after our people and their development through being a responsive, diverse, learning organisation

6.2 Milestones

status	target
achieved	take action regarding bullying, harassment and discrimination by delivering our ‘tackling unacceptable behaviour’ action plan – increasing knowledge, support and communication
achieved	ensure flexible and hybrid working is tailored to the needs of our people
achieved	supporting mental health and wellbeing through information, monitoring and support
achieved	building the capability of our people through an inclusive learning and development offer with a data driven approach focused on training, coaching and mentoring

6.3 Performance indicators

Health

During 2022-23 our average working days lost (AWDL) were at their lowest, 6.9 and highest, 7.9. This is based on the previous rolling 12 month period, measured against a target of below 5.3 days. Our end of year position at 2022-23 is 6.9 the same as our end of year position in 2021-22

Learning and development

Of the LAA staff who completed the annual Civil Service People Survey, 56% responded positively to say that learning and development activities completed while working for the LAA were helping them to develop their career. This is plus 1% on the positive response to this question in the 2021 People Survey.

Bullying and harassment

Based on insight from the annual Civil Service People Survey 2022:

Are our people comfortable to talk about bullying and harassment?

• 4% – the same proportion of people answered ‘prefer not to say’ to the bullying and harassment question as in 2021

Are our people confident to report it?

• 58% – a greater proportion of people who said they had experienced it formally reported it.

Where bullying and harassment was reported a greater proportion of people felt that:

• their report was dealt with effectively – 35%

• the culture in their area allowed this behaviour to continue – 50%

Representative

We want the people we employ to be representative of the society we serve. So, we compare our staff demographics against census data for England and Wales:

• 14.6% of our people had no declaration for their ethnicity or disability status – our target was 10%

• 38.1/61.9 was our split between those identifying as male and female – our target was 50/50

• 15.6% of our people declared as being from a diverse ethnic minority – our target was 14%

• 17.8% of our people declared as having a disability – our target was 16%

Following the 2021 People Survey we committed to three actions as a result of feedback from our people during 2022:

1. Bullying, harassment and discrimination

Our people wanted us to take action regarding bullying, harassment and discrimination, to tackle unacceptable behaviour and take action when issues were raised.

2. Pay and benefits

While there was a score improvement in 2021 based on recent pay changes, it was likely satisfaction with this area would drop moving forward. People Survey comments indicated this was a significant concern for our staff.

3. Learning and development

While the LAA remains the highest scoring department in the MoJ for learning and development, there was a drop in the overall satisfaction levels in 2021. Our people were telling us that time needed to be made available for learning. There was also the need for more development conversations and better links between development and career progression.

4. Hybrid/flexible working

This was a significant area of concern for people with the return of office working.

7. Our strategic objectives – 2023-24

7.1 Our focus for this year

We understand our contribution to the MoJ strategic outcomes and how our strategic objectives deliver toward them. The work we do to achieve each of our objectives is designed to make our vision an everyday reality for people who rely on us.

For each objective we have specific areas of development and measures to understand how well we are doing. Over time our goals will change. So, we will keep using data from our measures and feedback from those who use our services to improve what we do.

Strategic objectives for year ahead

• deliver access to justice through legal aid services that meets the needs of our users

• modernise our services, delivering value for money for taxpayers

• become a truly diverse and inclusive employer of choice

Alongside our strategic objectives, when planning how we can achieve delivery of them, we retain our 4 key strategic enablers outlining how we want to deliver.

User-centred

We are a delivery organisation focused on user needs, improving the quality of our services and understanding our users’ experience of them. We want their interactions with us to be as accessible and easy as possible. We will achieve this by building better, newer digital services and reducing our reliance on legacy technologies.

Right decisions, first time

Consistently good delivery against our performance targets supports our ‘right first time’ approach. We continually seek opportunities to drive up performance, challenge ourselves where we can do more and earn a consistently good reputation for doing so.

Simplified and sustainable

We use data and evidence to support decision-making and direct change. We challenge ourselves to continually identify where our services can be simplified to deliver improvement and reduce costs across the justice system. We focus on ensuring change is sustainable, providing long-term adaptable solutions that support relevant United Nations sustainable development goals.

A responsive, diverse, learning organisation

Our people are at the heart of our achievements, we support them to learn, develop and share their skills. We expand this approach by encouraging partnership working across the MoJ, wider government and the Civil Service.

8. Strategic objective 1

Deliver access to justice through legal aid services that meet the needs of our users

We are a delivery organisation focused on user needs, accessing legal aid funding and being paid for carrying out legal aid work. We work to recognise the different needs of people who use our services. The aim is to improve quality and the experience people have of our services. We want people to have confidence in our services and the way they respond to their needs.

8.1 Milestones

1. Ensure all service targets for 2023-24 are met to support the effective operation of the justice system.
2. Policy reforms for implementation in 2023-24 are delivered through revised business processes and digital development ensuring continued, effective delivery of all legal aid services.
3. Our Public Defender Service will provide access to justice for clients through continual coverage of services that meet their needs.
4. Run tenders to secure criminal and civil legal aid providers and consult on contract changes to support the ongoing provision of legal aid services including:

• Nationality and Borders Act services

• Housing Loss Prevention Advice Service

• 2018 Standard Civil Contract extension

• Illegal Migration Act services

• start tender activity for 2024 standard civil contracts

8.2 Our headline performance indicators

Getting legal aid:

To apply for legal aid our headline performance targets for 2023-24 will be:

• 85% of applications for civil legal aid, end to end, within 20 working days

• 90% of applications for criminal legal aid within 2 working days

• 80% of applications for exceptional and complex cases, end to end, within 25 working days

• 90% civil application appeals that do not require an external adjudicator to be processed within 20 working days

We have associated performance measures which we monitor throughout the year for exceptional case funding, high-cost family work and civil amendments.

Paying for legal aid:

For our providers seeking payment for legal aid services they have provided, our headline performance targets for 2023-24 will be:

• 95% of complete, accurate, eligible bills paid within 20 working days – monies received in account by provider

• 95% of civil billing appeals that do not require an external adjudicator to be processed within 20 working days

Applications and bills can be submitted by different methods often meaning the LAA can receive them at any time of the day in a 24 hour period. For the purpose of calculating time taken, date of receipt is counted as day zero.

Responding to concerns:

For anyone wishing to raise a concern about our services our headline performance targets for 2023-24 will be:

• 90% of first tier initial complaints within 20 days, excluding Central Customer Services Team (CCST)

• 90% of second tier, unresolved at first tier, complaints within 20 days

We have associated correspondence performance measures which we monitor throughout the year for MP correspondence, Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act and Parliamentary Questions (aligned to statutory timeframes).

For our telephone service:

We’ll maintain telephone service standards:

• 75% of crime or civil calls to our customer services unit answered within 5 minutes

• 90% of duty solicitor calls offered to the Public Defender Service to be accepted

9. Strategic objective 2

Modernise our services, delivering value for money for taxpayers

We use data and evidence to support decision-making. We are focused on providing a credible service our users can have confidence in, transforming in response to the needs of our users. We manage our contracts for legal aid services providing assurance of provider performance and use of public money.

On wider justice initiatives and pilots, we work with our operational teams and contracted providers. We value their contributions, ensuring that the LAA operates in line with policy and legislative intentions.

9.1 Milestones

1.Continued delivery of new Apply service:

• Civil Apply – processing of civil legal aid applications will be expanded to further areas of law, Special Children’s Act, Public Law and Housing.

• Crime Apply – replacement for CRM14 and CRM15 eForms begins testing with a small group of providers and caseworkers in summer 2023 with extra features to be added by early 2024

2.We will provide operational guidance to help with:

• phase 2 of the government’s response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR) focused on fee scheme and billing system reform

• the Review of Civil Legal Aid (RoCLA)

3.Check if your client qualifies (CCQ) - our new service for checking whether clients qualify for legal aid will be released to all providers.

4.Means Test Review – we will implement phase 1 and prepare for implementation of further phases.

5.Introduce a data toolkit to build staff capability and confidence in working with data by July 2023.

9.2 Our related performance indicators

Our accuracy and accountability

We will maintain our performance to:

• minimise our net error rate, ensuring it remains below 1%

• keep our funding and administrative spending within budget

We have associated accuracy and accountability performance measures which we monitor throughout the year. These include contract management activity with providers and civil bill rejects.

Our financial management

To maintain our financial forecasting and oversight of what we spend our headline performance measures for 2023-24 will be:

• deliver our services within our agreed, legal aid admin spend

• monitor our legal aid fund spend to inform future planning and engagement with HM Treasury

We have associated financial management performance measures which we monitor throughout the year for debt recovery.

Modernising and transforming our services

We will have headline performance measures focused on the delivery of our new digital crime and civil services for 2023-24 as follows:

• 20% of crime applications submitted are made through Apply by year end

• 32% of civil applications submitted are made through Apply by year end

We will also have supporting measures in place to monitor the roll out of Apply and how well it works for users.

10. Strategic objective 3

‘Become a truly diverse and inclusive employer of choice’

Our people are at the heart of our achievements, we support them to learn, develop and share their skills. We want to offer a working environment that celebrates our people as individuals and includes choice about how we collaborate to best meet business objectives.

We will:

• use our LAA People Strategy as a roadmap supporting our goal for the LAA to be a great place to work for everyone

• deliver our objectives for this year through the LAA People Plan

10.1 Milestones

1.Refresh and continue to deliver our ‘tackling unacceptable behaviour’ action plan. This involves delivering training to all our people and linking in with the MoJ Professional Behaviours Unit to:

• raise awareness of their offer

• improve understanding of the support available

2.Improve and update our approach to change to:

• involve our people in key decisions through strong, visible leadership

• deliver opportunities to learn more about change and understand its impacts

3.Enhance the capability of our people, ensuring clear career pathways and a comprehensive offer to ensure we are fit for the future through delivery of our Capability and Career Commitments

10.2 Our related performance indicators

‘Supporting our people to be productive and engaged’

We will:

• monitor our average working days lost through sickness at 7 working days per year or less

• increase percentage of positive responses to the annual Civil Service People Survey questions on learning and development opportunities

We have a zero-tolerance approach to bullying and harassment and work to ensure our people feel they are appropriately supported if issues are reported.

We use data from the Civil Service People Survey to look for improved responses on whether our people are:

• comfortable to talk about bullying and harassment

• confident to report it

• satisfied any report is dealt with effectively

• that there is not a culture in their area that allows it to continue

Representative

We want the people we employ to be representative of the society we serve. That is why we compare our staff demographics against the latest census data for England and Wales:

• no more than 10% of our people having not declared their ethnicity or disability status

• a 50/50 split in our workforce between those identifying as male and female

• 18% of our people declared as being from a diverse ethnic minority

• 21% of our people declared as having a disability

The annual Civil Service People Survey is the main source of information across the LAA for the views of our people. We consistently achieve high levels of participation.

Corporate actions from People Survey

Here are the top 4 headline corporate actions that we will take away during 2023 as a result of the 2022 People Survey:

1. Bullying, harassment and discrimination

Our scores improved slightly but there is still work to do in terms of delivering our action plan and raising awareness of both the issues and the support available.

2. Pay and benefits

Satisfaction with this area dropped in responses to the 2022 survey. Pay, and the current cost of living crisis, remains a significant area of concern for our people.

3. Learning and development

Our people tell us that clear communication of opportunities, development of career pathways and time being made available for L&D are key areas to focus on.

4. Leadership and change

Our people want to be more involved in the decisions that affect them. Through greater consultation on change and visible leadership we will strive to keep our managers and teams updated on change.

11. Appendix

11.1 Director of Legal Aid Casework

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) ensured that the decision-making process for legal aid applications remained independent from ministers. The Director of Legal Aid Casework (DLAC), a role created by LASPO, has responsibility for making decisions on individual applications for legal aid. The LAA’s chief executive currently undertakes this role, in practice delegating decision-making to LAA caseworkers and providers. The Legal Aid Agency board supports the DLAC to ensure that robust practices are in place to maintain the independence of the decision-making process. The DLAC report is published annually, separately from the annual report and accounts.

11.2 Living within our means

As part of the Ministry of Justice, we will contribute to the overall required reduction in spend at departmental level. Our fiscal resource departmental expenditure limit out-turn for 2022-23 and budget for 2023-24 are set out below:

	Actuals 2022-23	Budget 2023-24
Fund	£1,852.1m	£2,119.4m

LAA operations

£49.9m

£58.1m

These figures represent the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) delegated resource departmental expenditure limits (RDEL) budget and out-turn against this budget in each year. These costs do not match directly to the operational expenditure presented in the LAA annual report and accounts. These show the total expenditure incurred by the LAA including recharges from across the MoJ for support services.

11.3 Managing our risks

The agency’s approach to risk management is supported by its assurance framework which follows HM Treasury best practice. The framework identifies 3 lines of defence, which are:

1. Frontline operational arrangements to manage risk. For example, risk registers, routine system controls and other management information.
2. Second line assurance activities is the oversight of management activity. This involves expert guidance, monitoring and compliance reviews to assure the effectiveness of frontline arrangements on risk and control.
3. Independent and more objective assurance of LAA’s control processes, from:

• National Audit Office – external audit

• Government Internal Audit Agency – internal audit

The 3 lines of defence are designed to:

• provide sufficient, continuous and reliable assurance on our organisational stewardship

• manage the major risks to our organisational success and delivery of improved, cost effective legal aid services

Further detail on our risks and our financial performance can be found in the annual governance statement. This will be published as part of the LAA annual report and accounts.

Functional standards

As part of our wider role as an MOJ agency, during 2023-24 we continued to embed functional standards and the functional improvement assessment frameworks. Functional standards exist to create a coherent, effective and mutually understood way of doing business within government organisations and across organisational boundaries.

Also, to provide a stable basis for assurance, risk management and capability improvement, they support value for money for the taxpayer, and continuity of implementation.

These standards are mandated for use across central government and arm’s length bodies:

Mandating functional standards