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Sorry that should read, I read somewhere the other day administration of the legal aid fund will cost £175million in the next year.

Of course not all of that will be spent on administering criminal legal aid but by an odd coincidence if you gave all the remaining criminal duty solicitors a job and paid them £32,000 each the bill comes to almost exactly £175 million.

Successive governments have always been reluctant to expand the Public Defender Service and use them replace criminal legal aid because of the high cost per case.

But wasn't that high cost per case because in the early days the Public Defender Service had relatively few clients? May be the time is now right to go over to free representation through a Public Defender service only.

If legal aid was abolished for criminal matters in the police station and magistrates court but over 5000 duty solicitors were all employed to provide a free service in both places the cost per case has to fall would it not? The PDS would represent nearly all defendants wouldn't they?

These are questions the review might want to consider.

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