Minister blames 'atrocious' IT systems for legal aid fee setback

The government has blamed ‘absolutely atrocious’ legacy IT systems for not backdating legal aid fee uplifts announced last year as the courts minister called out ‘unhelpful’ language around advice deserts.

Legal aid fee increases for ‘controlled’ housing, immigration and asylum work – predominantly early legal advice – amounting to £18m came into force last December. However, the remaining £2m for ‘licensed’ work – legal representation – has yet to come into force.

Asked about the outstanding uplift by the House of Commons justice select committee this week, Farah Ziaulla, joint director for legal aid and legal support at the Ministry of Justice, told MPs that her department was unable to commit to a date as it continues to deal with the aftermath of last year’s cyber-attack.

Committee member Pam Cox MP asked if the uplift would be backdated to December 2025 when it is finally implemented. However, Ziaulla said ‘forward-looking and not retrospective’ fee uplifts were the stated position.

Cox then asked if there was room for negotiation, to which courts minister Sarah Sackman replied: ‘No - and there’s a practical point there. We’re dancing a little around this issue, around the underlying system. Every time government announces a fee change or uplift, it’s incredibly difficult to implement. And there’s a very simple reason for that. That’s because of years of people who sat in my position ducking the big decisions around investment in what are absolutely atrocious legacy systems.’

Sackman told the committee providers were spending 30%-40% of their time ‘wrestling with our dreadful systems’ and she did not want to keep announcing fee uplifts 'if we can’t actually implement them. It’s incredibly difficult to backdate and do it retrospectively’.

On the Legal Aid Agency’s recent invitation for housing and debt providers in 45 procurement areas, Sackman said contracting had become more flexible, allowing providers to enter the market at different points in a procurement cycle. ‘The principle is one of “no postcode lottery”. The procurement is healthy to provide coverage such that some of the language around “deserts” I don’t think is hugely helpful,' Sackman said.