Fee Rates: legal aid budget faces £130 million overspend

The government intends to curb the legal aid budget by cracking down on high-cost criminal cases, it said last week.


In a letter to the Law Society and Bar Council, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, said he wanted to curtail the criminal budget as it was causing an overspend of £130 million a year.


In addition to the review announced last week, he intends to take quick measures by slashing the enhancement rates payable to solicitors in fraud cases by half, and reducing the difference between the fees paid to the top fraud solicitors and counsel to bring them into line with other lawyers. Barristers will face other cuts under the graduated fee scheme and for travel and waiting. The changes will come into force in October.


But the Legal Aid Practitioners Group said the government would be better off adopting a 'polluter pays' principle, addressing the Home Office as the main culprit because its policies have increased demand for legal aid services. Director Richard Miller argued: 'Even if pay cuts are warranted, making them on the hoof like this in response to an immediate budget crisis, without any research on their impact and in isolation from the other reforms needed, is no way to make policy.'


Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: 'The Lord Chancellor has promised reforms to disclosure and to the management of such cases, both of which will do far more to control costs than crude cuts to payment rates, and without damaging the quality of defence representation.'