At the risk of upsetting some of my colleagues, I offer a suggestion as how to relieve pressure on the criminal legal aid budget.

It is common knowledge that a disproportionate amount of the criminal budget is spent on a small proportion of very high-cost cases.


Despite this, the Legal Services Commission (LSC) continues to focus its cost-saving drive on the most poorly paid area of the profession - high street criminal law specialist firms.


However, the LSC could at a stroke solve its budgetary crisis by ceasing to pay vastly inflated rates to serious fraud panel solicitors.


Serious fraud and other large cases present huge potential for fee-earning, whether or not the rates are enhanced. We must ask ourselves why is it that wealthy corporate criminals have solicitors who are paid twice that of the ordinary crime specialist solicitor.


The 'complexity' argument does not wash. Most of the work is mundane and can be done by paralegals who are often employed temporarily to wade through mountains of irrelevant unused material.


The simple solution is to scrap the system of enhanced rates altogether. The savings would be vast and capable of financing a fair and equitable system of public funding for criminal cases across the entire spectrum of cases.


As a collateral saving, the LSC would be able to dismantle the expensive monitoring system it has to maintain for the very high-cost cases system.


Adam Walker, Adam Walker & Co, Ilkley, Yorkshire