The Legal Aid Agency will struggle with staff recruitment and retention due to the government’s means test reforms, court recovery policies and potential billing changes, its annual report has revealed.

The report, published yesterday, states that recruitment and retention issues were identified as a ‘corporate level risk’ last autumn. ‘The LAA has experienced recruitment and retention issues during 21-22 which are predicted to continue as we move into 22-23 due to the additional resourcing required for the means test review, demand-led policies including court recovery and potential changes in civil taxed bill assessment.’

The Ministry of Justice estimates over five million more people will be eligible for legal aid as a result of its means test reforms. Meanwhile, legal aid practitioners can currently choose to have certain costs bills assessed by the courts or the LAA. The hybrid system will remain in place until November, when the department will consult on a longer-term position.

The LAA report states that centralised recruitment was announced last autumn and an action plan had been produced by January ‘to address our process issues from attracting candidates to onboarding’.

Key achievements include the introduction of a rolling recruitment for case management ‘to enable better management of resource levels’, agreement to advertise permanent roles wherever possible, changes to business case processes ‘to allow backfilling a position if the successful candidate is within the same cost centre’ and adding diversity questions to all leadership campaigns.

Staff turnover jumped from 3.2% in 2020-21 to 4.7% the following year. Sickness absence also jumped – from 4.2 days in 2020-21 to 6.9 days in 2021-22. However, half of staff had no sickness absence during the 12 months to March 2022.

Risks identified for 2022-23 include cost of living and staff pay.

 

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