No legal aid pay joy in spending review

Legal aid solicitors saw their chances of a pay rise slipping yet further away this week after Chancellor Gordon Brown's 61 billion spending spree saw the sector promised just 181 million more funding over four years.

However, immigration practitioners were holding their breath over how it will affect them.

The comprehensive spending review granted the Lord Chancellor's Department (LCD) a 438 million increase over the next four years, including 181 million for legal aid.

Home Office and LCD funding for asylum are to be confirmed in a separate ring-fenced fund, the government said.

Criminal justice spending will rise by 3.6 billion to 18.3 billion between now and 2005-2006, with the Home Office receiving a 2.9 billion boost.

The Law Officers Department, which oversees the Crown Prosecution Service, will get an extra 75 million.

The money will be used to secure 1.2 million successful prosecutions each year, with 650 million put towards overhauling courts' case management IT systems to push this forward.

The Law Society voiced concerns that the criminal justice system would become 'conviction driven', and criticised the 'disappointing' rise in legal aid funding.

'It will do nothing to tackle the real problems of access to justice or to enable solicitors to continue with legal aid work,' it complained.

Richard Miller, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, said he hoped a separate asylum fund would ease pressure on the legal aid budget.

'I hope that now the LCD knows what the situation is it can find a way of increasing rates of remuneration, but it has not been given a great deal to play around with,' he said.

Law Society immigration law committee member Andrew Holroyd said it was 'disturbing' that the future funding of asylum work had been left up in the air.

He said: 'We have always been told that asylum seekers would have the representation they needed, and now we are wondering what is happening.

If there is a threat to funding we are worried about the consequences.'

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, guessed that the LCD would join solicitors in feeling let down by the legal aid allocation.

'I imagine that when so much is being put into the fight for criminal justice, they will be disappointed that a bit more was not put into the LCD's pot,' he said.

A Legal Services Commission spokesman said: 'It would be premature to comment until we have studied the detail and the implications of the figures for the criminal justice system and asylum.

Increased funding in these areas will have a knock-on effect on legal aid.'