Legal aid statistics quarterly: October to December 2020
Activity in the legal aid system for England and Wales, including criminal and civil legal aid and family mediation.
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The quarterly legal aid statistics bulletin presents statistics on the legal aid scheme administered by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) for England and Wales. This edition comprises the first release of statistics for the three month period from October to December 2020 and also provides the latest statement of figures for all earlier periods. This edition also includes figures provisional figures for January 2021 based on management information are included in the bulletin. These statistics are derived from data held by LAA, produced and published by Legal Aid Statistics team of the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).
Statistician’s Comment
This publication shows that completed workload and the associated expenditure has continued to fall this quarter, due to COVID-19, across most legal aid schemes.
Criminal legal aid expenditure decreased compared to the same quarter last year in schemes that support the court system, including the magistrates’ and Crown Court. The incoming workload for representation at the courts has almost returned to levels seen in the previous year. Complex trial cases ongoing at the Crown Court are not completing at the same rate as pre-covid due to social distancing measures, and reduced capacity in the courts is impacting upon closed claim expenditure.
Civil legal aid volumes and expenditure show a mixed picture compared to the same quarter last year, but there are increases across some schemes overall since last quarter. Civil representation applications remain slightly lower than last year, and legal help starts and claims remain much lower than last year. Applications for civil representation domestic violence cases have seen the biggest increase since last year, however this is not reflected in the DVCA gateway which continues to fall in applications and grants. Mediation workload has increased and now exceeds levels seen previously, and there has been some activity in HPCDS.
Section 6 presents provisional figures for January 2021 based on management information. The January 2021 figures show a slight reversal in the recovery from the impact of COVID-19 in terms of work starting in criminal legal aid, with court representation applications down 8% in the Crown Courts and staying level in magistrates’ courts compared to the average of the previous quarter. Within civil legal aid, both legal help starts and civil representation applications fell in January 2021 compared to the average of the previous quarter.
It was expected that criminal and civil legal aid volumes would return to, and even temporarily exceed, historic trend levels and more recent falls could be due to this return to normal levels or impact from further lockdowns.
Pre-release
Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons:
Ministry of Justice
Secretary of State for Justice, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Permanent Secretary, Director General Chief Financial Officer Group, Director of Data and Analysis, Head of Access to Justice Policy, Deputy Director Legal Aid Policy, Chief Statistician, Private Secretary Permanent Secretary Office, Special Advisor Inbox, Legal Aid Policy Officials (6), Press Officers (3), Private secretaries (5), Head of Legal Aid Analysis
Legal Aid Agency
Chief Executive, Chief Executive’s Office, Head of Financial Forecasting, Head of External Communications, Senior External Communications Manager, Director of Finance Business Partnering, Service Development Managers (2), Exceptional and Complex Cases Workflow Co-ordinator