Legal aid expenditure this year is expected to be about £1.5bn, well under 1% of public expenditure.

The number of cases (and overall expenditure) rose rapidly until recently.

Expenditure is now growing at a much more moderate rate and legal aid has been underspent for the last two years.The main causes of the increased expenditure -- government action to make legal aid more widely available; a few exceptionally expensive cases in both civil and criminal legal aid; the tendency for the average cost of cases to increase; and improved arrangements for paying lawyers -- are no longer pushing up expenditure.

CHOICE OF SOLICITORAt present, the public can get help under legal aid from almost 11,000 solicitors' offices.

The government plans to restrict client choice to solicitors who hold legal aid franchises.

There are at present fewer than l200 franchised offices.

Even if that number doubles, public choice of solicitor and access to legal aid would be much more restricted than at present.

The Law Society is opposed to restricting a client's choice to franchised firms.

Restrictions on choice would be justified only if they were necessary in order to ensure adequate quality of service to the client.

CASH LIMITING The government proposes to introduce a system of fixed cash limits for legal aid.

The Law Society is opposed to that proposal.

Introducing cash limits would inevitably mean that legal aid would operate erratically.

The availability of legal aid would differ in different parts of the country and at different times of the year, depending upon whether the Legal Aid Board had accurately predicted the number of cases likely to arise.

BLOCK CONTRACTS The government proposes to introduce a system of block contracts for both civil and criminal work under which solicitors would deal with a specified number of cases at a fixed price.

Contracts would be awarded following price competition.

Individual contract holders would decide whether to grant legal aid in each case.

The Law Society is opposed to these proposals.

They would create a serious conflict of interest between the solicitor's need to make a reasonable living and each client's wish that his or her case be prepared as thoroughly as possible.

Awarding contracts by competitive tendering would drive down the quality of service, particularly as there are no well established means of measuring quality of legal work.LEGAL AID FOR CIVIL NON-FAMILY CASESThe government proposes to leave decisions on whether advice and assistance should be given, and whether legal aid should be started or continued, to individual contract holders.

Contract holders would decide whether the case was of sufficient priority compared with others seeking funding.

Legal aid would not be granted where mediation appeared to be a satisfactory alternative.

The Society is opposed to the proposal to introduce a new 'comparative priority' test for legal advice or legal aid.

All those whose cases qualify should continue to be entitled to legal aid.

The Society supports the government's wish to make mediation available to legal aid clients, but it is opposed to forcing legal aid clients to use mediation rather than negotiate through solicitors.

LEGAL AID FOR SOCIAL WELFARE LAWThe Law Society supports the proposals to increase advice and representation on social welfare law.

Although the amount of advice given on social welfare law has risen substantially in recent years, provision is still far from adequate.

The Law Society also supports the proposal that advice agencies should be able to give advice under the legal aid scheme even if they do not employ solicitors.

The Society also welcomes the proposal that provision should be made for representation at tribunals.

FINANCIAL CONDITIONS FOR LEGAL AIDThe government does not propose any general improvement in the financial conditions for legal aid.

The Society believes that the free limit for legal aid should be restored to the real value it had in 1993, before the government reduced it.

The longer term objective should be to raise the limit so that those who qualify for benefits such as family credit are no longer required to contribute towards the cost of their legal aid.THE LAW SOCIETY SAYS-- implement many of the proposals in Lord Woolf's report, 'Access to justice';-- regulate fees paid to QCs in legal aid cases;-- introduce a conditional legal aid fund for personal injury cases, so that the cost of unsuccessful cases is met by a surcharge on successful claimants;-- establish a separate, cash-limited fund for test cases of social importance, so that cases which do not meet the ordinary merits test are no longer funded from the legal aid fund;-- ensure that the legal aid fund only pays for the attendance of one lawyer in court, unless there is a clear need for a second person to attend;-- ensure that QCs appear without a junior barrister where appropriate, and that two barristers do not attend court on days when their participation in a trial is minimal;-- ensure that all solicitors have rights of audience to deal with guilty pleas, pre-trial hearings, and committals for sentence and appeals in the Crown Court;-- make costs orders in matrimonial proceedings where one party behaves intransigently during the proceedings;-- ensure that fraud trials are simplified through concentration on a small number of specimen charges;-- replace fraud trials with civil penalties where there is no clear evidence of personal dishonesty;-- ensure that the costs of acquitted defendants are paid from central funds, rather than from the legal aid fund;-- streamline the operation of duty solicitor schemes to reduce standby payments and travelling costs;-- require solicitors to obtain advance approval from the LAB before undertaking pro-active campaigns relating to green form advice;-- improve the operation of the test for the grant of legal aid through better guidance to area committees and area offices; include lay members on area committees;-- entitle legally aided persons' opponents to challenge the grant of legal aid.