A £1.5m government-funded training grant to strengthen the housing legal aid sector boosted resilience, capacity, service delivery and employer confidence in developing the future workforce, according to the Ministry of Justice's summary findings.

The Legal Aid Training Grant, which ran from September 2023 to November 2025, was designed to support the launch of the housing loss prevention advice service by enabling housing and debt contract-holders to recruit and train new solicitors to increase sector capacity.

The grants covered up to 75% of salary costs and £15,000 per trainee towards qualification fees. According to a letter from legal aid minister Sarah Sackman MP to the Commons justice select committee in June, the scheme helped train up 31 solicitors across 26 provider firms.

An official ‘high-level summary’ document seen by the Gazette reveals that 90% of providers said they would not have been able to recruit a trainee without the grant funding. ‘As trainees progressed, providers reported improved resilience, increased ability to manage caseloads, and strengthened overall capacity,’ the document said.

Trainees were highly satisfied with the quality of training and most expressed a ‘clear intention’ to remain with their firm doing civil legal aid work. Almost all providers felt more confident to recruit and support trainees. Nine in 10 said they would likely apply for a similar scheme. Trainees took on greater responsibility over time and required less supervision.

Key challenges included the financial pressure on providers to fund the remaining salary costs and supervision time. While trainees showed ‘strong commitment’ to legal aid, ‘concerns about pay and long-term affordability increased as trainees approached qualification, highlighting ongoing challenges in retaining staff’, the document says.

‘The evaluation finds that the LATG scheme was an effective intervention to support entry into housing legal aid, increase provider capacity, and develop a new cohort of trainees. While it cannot fully address all challenges affecting recruitment and retention, it demonstrates the value of training grants as a tool to support workforce development.'

Sackman, who announced a £1.5m training cashpot for criminal bar pupillages last week, told the justice committee in June that her department was ‘taking stock of the impact of the grant as we consider next steps to support the sector’.