Government: rising budget An influential group of MPs has slated plans to reintroduce a means test for criminal legal aid, warning that it could cause more trouble than it is worth by creating potential breaches of human rights legislation.

In a damning report issued this week, the parliamentary constitutional affairs select committee partly blamed the rising crime budget on other government departments failing to take account of the effect on legal aid of their policies.


The criminal legal aid spend has increased by £500 million since 1997. The committee called for more research into the causes of the problem, but argued that means testing was not the way to go about cutting costs.


'Two of the proposed means testing models would be unworkable in practice and the other may lead to successful challenges under the Human Rights Act 1998,' warned committee chairman Alan Beith. 'This will inevitably lead to delay and more costs - the exact opposite of what the government says it wants to achieve.'


The committee also questioned whether criminal defence solicitors should get devolved powers to decide whether legal aid was justified, as this might also lead to more cost and red tape.


Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Richard Miller agreed that the government was risking implementing changes that were 'well wide of the mark'. He added: 'The two main reasons the budget for criminal legal aid has gone up are the increase in the volume of cases meeting the interests of justice test, caused by Home Office policies, and the increasing cost of a few serious fraud and drug importation cases.'


A Legal Services Commission spokesman said it would consider the committee's concerns, adding that the consultation had been deliberately left broad 'in order to generate the widest possible debate and obtain many views'.


The report came out in the same week that the free e-mail service - www.crimeline.info - revealed the top 50 earners in the criminal legal aid market. Nottingham firm The Johnson Partnership came first, earning more than £9.3 million over the past three years. It was followed by the Forbes Partnership (£8.8 million); Tuckers' London office (£7.5 million); Nottingham-based Bhatia Best (£7 million); and London's Kaim Todner (£6.1 million).


LINKS:www.crimeline.info