LCD reveals 100m legal aid overspend

The legal aid budget has gone into the red to the tune of 100 million, it emerged this week, fuelling fears that the government will shortly order a massive clampdown on spending.

In a statement to the Gazette, the Lord Chancellor's Department said: 'There has been an overspend this year, now expected to be over 100 million.

We have taken full account of it during the 2002 spending review, but final decisions have not yet been taken.

Ministers hope to make an announcement soon about the results.'

Angus Andrew, chairman of the Law Society's representation board, told the Society's council last week that the prime candidate for a cut was criminal advice and assistance work.

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association and chairman of the Law Society's access to justice committee, said legal aid practitioners had faced uncertainty for too long.

'I would urge [the LCD] now to get on with making the announcement,' he said.

'But I would also ask how it expects the profession to react when they are clearly contemplating proposals to address budgetary issues which will dramatically affect those providing access to justice, and yet fails to seek any views or consultation about the best way forward.'

The news came in the same week that the Society, launching its consultation on the future of legal aid, warned that private practices would be forced either to struggle to stay afloat or to accept a 'significantly reduced' role in return for better pay, unless the government introduced fundamental changes.

Mr Andrew said it was now 'futile and unrealistic' to consider a scheme more expensive than the current one.

'During the last ten years for which complete records are available, the costs of running a solicitor's practice rose by 67.52% whilst legal aid rates increased by 26.35%,' he said.

Main options in the consultation for reforming the criminal legal aid scheme include rolling out the Public Defender Service, perhaps even to the point that it takes on most of the work, with only a small number of complex cases going to private firms.

Continuing with the present structure but with block funding is another alternative.

For civil legal aid, the Society puts forward a two-tier system with advice and assistance from not-for-profit organisations, and representation from private firms.

Expanding law centres or Law for All - a charitable scheme that operates like a profitable law centre - is also mooted.

Extending an employed civil and family advice service based on law centres, which would refer complex or specialist cases to private practice, is another option.

The Society will be holding a series of road shows across England and Wales to help solicitors explore the options before the consultation deadline of 30 April.

The Legal Aid Practitioners Group agreed that maintaining the status quo was not an option as the Treasury was unlikely to increase funding.

'There are undoubted strengths of private practice and weaknesses of other models,' director Richard Miller said.

'We need to highlight these to make the positive case for private practice, but this may also mean recognising that other ways of delivering services also have their strengths, and should have a larger place in the system.'

- The Society's regional offices are organising legal aid consultation seminars in London (17 February), Cardiff (27 Feb), Newcastle (6 March), Birmingham (11 March), High Wycombe (26 March), Duxford near Cambridge (1 April), Leicester (8 April), Manchester (29 April), and Leeds (6 May).

Paula Rohan