Government policy on legal aid is a ‘shambles’ with no clear direction, the Law Society said this week.

Chief executive Des Hudson said recent government announcements seemed to indicate that the Ministry of Justice is ‘jumping from one position to another’.

The Legal Services Commission was forced to delay the two best-value tendering pilots for criminal legal aid in Manchester and Avon and Somerset last month because of a consultation issued by the MoJ in August, which will affect criminal legal aid rates.

Last week the MoJ launched a review of the ‘delivery’ of legal aid to be conducted by Sir Ian Magee, which will examine the role of the LSC and the possible separation of the civil and criminal legal aid budgets.

Hudson said the timeframe of Magee’s review, which would allow just eight weeks when the Christmas holidays were taken into account, was an ‘unseemly rush’ that did not reflect the ‘complexity and significance of the task’.

The Law Society has this week written to legal aid minister Lord Bach to seek clarification on the terms of reference of the review. The letter asks: ‘Are we to assume… that the whole future of the LSC, and its very existence, falls for consideration by Sir Ian? We are surprised that it is thought that he can possibly take evidence… on such a complex and critical issue in just over two months.’

It continues: ‘This comes relatively shortly after the Carter report… We understand that the National Audit Office is due to report on its examination of the LSC next month [and] Sir Ian will have to consider its findings as part of its review… To ask him to "explore the separation of the Criminal Defence Service and Community Legal Service" at a time when so much uncertainty surrounds criminal legal aid, as a result of the 23% cuts for advocacy proposed in the MoJ’s consultation of 20 August, simply adds to the difficulties.’

Hudson told the Gazette he feared the review of the LSC could be an attempt to match the Conservative pledge of a ‘bonfire of the quangos’. ‘There are too many livelihoods at stake for party politics,’ he said, adding that current legal aid policy was a ‘shambles’.

The Law Society has also written to the LSC calling on it to delay the BVT pilot because of the Magee review.

An MoJ spokesman said Magee had agreed to the timeframe for the review before being appointed.