At the moment, anyone is entitled to free advice in the police station if they are arrested. For minor cases they may get only telephone advice, for more serious cases they get a lawyer in the police station for any interview. The universal right to representation by a solicitor at a police station was enshrined in section 58(1) Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 in response to a series of serious miscarriages of justice in the 1970s and 80s involving unrepresented defendants.

But clause 12 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill appears  to say that advice in the police station will in future only be available if the Government decides in the individual case that it is in the ‘interests of justice’ to do so. There would also seem to be a financial barrier to negotiate, requiring both a ‘merit’ and a ‘means’ test to be applied at the point where someone has been arrested and is in police station custody. Writing in the ‘Observer’, Jamie Doward says that legal experts, including Lord Ken Macdonald QC, a former director of public prosecutions, have expressed alarm at the proposal and questioned how it would work in practice.

Richard Miller, head of legal aid policy at the Law Society, is quoted as saying: “When someone is arrested they are in the power of the state, subject to the mercies of the police officers involved. The purpose of having a solicitor acting for them is to ensure their rights are respected, that they are not physically abused, that their confessions are not forged and they are not detained for longer than legally allowed.” He pointed out that the presence of a lawyer also protects the police from a defendant making up allegations about what happened, for instance during the course of an interrogation, and he cautioned the government against interfering in any way with the absolute right to representation in police stations. “It’s there for a very good reason. When we didn’t have it, we saw the consequences,” he said.

But then things are never quite what they seem. An interesting exchange took place in the Commons on Wednesday during the debate on the second reading of the bill. Tory MP David Burrowes declared an interest as “one who has been a duty solicitor in the police station.” He asked Ken Clarke to consult carefully about the practical implementation of proposals to limit legal aid for advice and assistance in police stations, as “losing the benefit of the informed legal advice that one needs in the police station can lead to inefficient justice.”

Mr Clarke’s response is worth quoting in full: “We will look at that and consider it carefully as we proceed. At the moment, the Bill replicates a provision taken from an earlier Bill by the Labour party. It appears to give a power to take away the right to legal aid. It appears to give a power to take away access to legal advice in the police station. The last Government legislated to do that but never did it. We have no current intentions of doing it. We will consider the issue and no doubt my hon. Friend or others will return to it in Committee. I realise that there has been some concern.”

There would seem to be some room for manoeuvre here.

The government is pressing ahead with plans to cut £350m from the more than £2bn annual legal aid bill, despite lawyers’ and campaigners’ opposition. A record response of over 5,000 consultation submissions, universally unfavourable, has produced no U-turn. Under the plans, some 600,000 cases of legal aid in England and Wales will no longer be funded if the full package goes through Parliament.

There have been some minor changes to the government’s earlier proposals. The definition of domestic violence in family disputes has been broadened to include providing legal support to those who have suffered psychological abuse. And legal aid to help children with special educational needs has also been restored. Excluding it would have saved the Ministry of Justice barely £1 million and had already caused a political outcry. Jolanta Lasota, chief executive of Ambitious about Autism, said: “For many of the parents we support, using the legal system is the only way to get a good education for their child with special educational needs. They will be hugely relieved by the government’s decision to support their right to justice for their children.”

The bill proposes the abolition of the Legal Services Commission (LSC), a non-departmental public body which looks after legal aid in England and Wales. It will be replaced by direct government administration of the legal aid system under a Director of Legal Aid Casework, who will be a civil servant answerable to government ministers. The bill also plans wholesale implementation of the Jackson reforms of civil litigation costs, which will have implications for small businesses and access to justice.

In the Commons, the justice secretary said that he would not abolish, as originally proposed, the current capital disregards for pensioners and for equity in the main home in assessing an applicant’s eligibility for legal aid. In response to expressed concerns he also dangled a carrot when he said: “On citizens advice bureaux and other forms of general advice, I hope to be able to say something on Second Reading—I am making advances, but we will see how much we can come forward with.” But he went on to confirm: “Legal aid will no longer be routinely available for most private family law cases, clinical negligence, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, some education cases, and welfare benefits. It will also no longer be available for squatters resisting eviction.”

Needless to say the proposals have had a thoroughly bad press. Linda Lee, president of the Law Society, said: “The government has failed to consider alternatives which would make bigger savings without removing civil legal aid from some of the most vulnerable people in society.” Stephen Cobb QC, chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, said: “The threats posed by the government’s proposals are real and potentially brutal.” Gillian Guy, of Citizen’s Advice, predicted that those in greatest need would suffer. Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope, said: “As the government presses ahead with its welfare reform agenda – which will hit disabled people hard – it is probably more important than ever that disabled people have access to legal aid and advice.”

The Legal Action Group believes the legal aid cuts are penny-wise but pound-foolish. They calculate that £1 of expenditure on civil legal help saves the government around £6 in other public expenditure. As Zoe Williams writes in the ‘Guardian’: “This might be a cut, but it isn’t a saving. It will cost us a fortune.”

Twelve months ago in the Rose Garden we were promised a coalition government guided by progressive values and reason. Justice secretary Ken Clarke seemed to have been so guided, with a green paper setting out a rehabilitative revolution in penal reform, driven by the prohibitive human and financial cost of the current regime. After the Prime Minister’s rewriting of this bill that rehabilitative revolution lies in ruins.

The way it happened on Tuesday is as noteworthy as what happened. It is, to say the least, unusual for the introduction and first reading of a major bill to be prefaced – and thoroughly upstaged – by a Prime Ministerial press conference. Having backed the Clarke plans in private, he emerged to trash them in public as the justice secretary was forced by Downing Street to ditch more than 60% of his original proposals. In a brief exchange in the Commons debate, Ken Clarke confirmed that: “The proposals that I presented for consultation and the Green Paper were the proposals of the Prime Minister, the whole Cabinet and I.” The craven capitulation that followed was caused by the outcry from the Tory right and the tabloid press, and falling poll ratings on law and order. David Cameron defended his actions thus: “It is absolutely vital that the public have confidence in a criminal justice system that the state puts in place. Public confidence is not a side issue in this debate. It is the issue.”

The headline policy reversal was the complete abandonment of the proposed 50% sentence discount for guilty pleas, now deemed “too lenient”. Going beyond the scope of the current bill in some cases, the Prime Minister announced plans to impose a surprise tough “two strikes and you’re out” mandatory life sentence. He also announced that anyone guilty of a sexual or violent offence would spend two-thirds of the sentence in prison, rather than the current half.  The justice secretary has also quietly dropped his original plan to restore the discretion of judges on sentencing, which had proposed the scrapping of David Blunkett’s minimum mandatory sentences. A Ministry of Justice impact assessment estimates the redrawn sentencing package will save just 2,650 prison places each year – or £80m – compared with the original 6,450 and £210m saving. So there is a shortfall to be found, and probation looks vulnerable.

Speaking in the Commons, Clarke said: “Public confidence in the criminal justice system is unacceptably low. That is why we want to take forward plans for a new offence, with a mandatory minimum prison sentence of six months, for adults who use a knife to threaten and endanger. We will also consult on proposals to criminalise squatting, and we will bring forward legislation to clarify the law on self-defence. In addition, I can confirm our intention to improve the use of remand and reduce the number of foreign national prisoners in our jails….We are reviewing so-called indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection, with a view to replacing them with a more sensible, tough system of long, determinate sentences.”

Curiously unremarked is clause 12 of the bill. This introduces an “interests of justice test” for police station advice. At the moment, anyone is entitled to free advice in the police station if they are arrested. For minor cases they get only telephone advice, for more major cases they get a lawyer in the police station for any interview. Clause 12 appears to say that advice in the police station will only be available if the Government decides in the individual case that it is in the interests of justice to do so, and there would also seem to be a financial barrier to negotiate. The role of “Director” in this context will be crucial. At best this will be a bureaucratic nightmare, at worst it creates scope for official abuse. Not a good day for Magna Carta or Human Rights legislation.

Liberal Democrat MP Dr Julian Huppert secured a debate on legal aid in the Commons last week. He said it was timely because although the Government consultation, which has received around 5,000 replies, has closed no response has been published.

His main concern was the detrimental effect the proposed cuts would have on the disadvantaged. He said that women will be disproportionately affected by the changes in legal aid as they are more often the recipients of it and less often have their own finances in place. Children and young people will also be disproportionately affected, partly because women make up the majority of primary care givers. Similar concerns apply in relation to disabled people, whether young or old, instancing the Government plan to remove legal aid relating to matters of special educational need. He was pleased that asylum will remain within the scope of legal aid, but extremely concerned that other immigration cases have been excluded. He said: “Even under existing arrangements, immigration legal aid providers are struggling to remain viable; if we confine legal aid to asylum, it is doubtful whether good quality practitioners will continue to be available. There is already a surfeit of poor quality lawyers and advisers working in this field, and we would all benefit from better provision because many of them are not up to scratch.”

Labour MP Yvonne Fovargue quoted the Legal Action Group when she said: “The personal, social and economic consequences of removing access to justice for so many people is unknown and unforgiveable.” A former chief executive of St Helens Citizens Advice for more than 20 years, she deplored the loss of most early intervention advice, with access available solely through a telephone gateway. “I believe that such proposals will disadvantage the most vulnerable in our society—the disabled, the elderly, those on a low income with a pre-paid mobile phone who often ring about debt issues, those with mental health issues, those whose first language is not English and many others” she said. Citizens Advice has produced detailed briefings showing the unintended consequences of the Government’s proposals on social welfare law work. Its cost-benefit analysis makes a strong case for retaining and even strengthening its role. It estimates that if funding were no longer available for these categories of law, at least £172 million of additional costs would accrue for both state and society. MP Jeremy Corbyn said: “The number of cases that are dealt with by legal aid in this country at the moment is 934,000…The cuts being proposed will mean that more than 600,000 people will not have access to legal aid. If we want a fair, decent and just society, everyone must have access to the law.”

After a universally negative critique of the green paper from his fellow MPs, Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly wound up the session with a stonewall recitation of its contents, without giving away any potential significant concession. But the immutable timetable of Parliamentary affairs did leave one cliff hanger. Much had been made during the debate that domestic violence cannot refer simply to physical violence. Dr Huppert said: “We must all be concerned about people suffering the threat of violence and mental torment. I hope that the Government will take seriously the criticisms that they have received on that point and will clarify and strengthen their definition of domestic violence so that those at risk have access to justice and are protected.” The Minister said: “In the consultation, we proposed that private law family legal aid should continue to be available where there is objective evidence of domestic violence. We have asked for views on what might provide objective evidence and therefore trigger private family law legal aid. We have been giving careful consideration to the points raised in response—.” At which point the Chairman said: “Order. I am afraid that we have run out of time for this debate.” It was time to discuss the Avon Ring Road (M4 Link).

You’ve probably seen the press adverts already. They ask if you will be silenced by cuts to Legal aid. “The Government is planning cuts that will deny millions of people access to justice. Don’t let this happen. Sound Off for Justice.”

Sound Off for Justice is a campaign aimed at ensuring that the most vulnerable and needy in society continue to have access to justice and legal aid. “We aim to put pressure on the Government to reconsider the proposed cuts that will deny millions of people with significant legal problems access to legal representation. Legal Aid support in cases of medical malpractice, employment and education are just some of the areas to be taken out of scope should the current proposals be taken forward in legislation expected later this year.”

The campaign recognises that the economic climate means that tough decisions need to be made and draws attention to the Law Society’s alternative proposals that will save £384 million from the legal aid budget. This is £34 million more than the government wants to save. The difference drawn is that the Law Society’s proposals will continue to protect the members of society who cannot protect themselves. Their proposals for the positive reform of legal aid would make the necessary savings whilst retaining the key areas that the current government plans want to remove. “This offers the government a very clear alternative to the proposals they have on the table at the moment.”

Amongst those supporting the campaign is Sadiq Khan, Shadow Lord Chancellor & Justice Secretary. He said: “I accept that there should be savings, but I disagree passionately with the way this government is going about doing it, especially in relation to the cuts in social welfare and those who are the most deprived in our community. The unintended consequences of what they are doing are going to be quite severe. What Ken Clarke needs to do is think again – this isn’t the way to do it.”
Lord Bach is calling for a full debate in parliament and society about legal aid before the cuts are rushed through. He also warns about the unintended consequences in cutting social welfare laws: “Social welfare law ensures that families and individuals with legal problems can have them solved before they get much worse and lead to much greater expenditure on behalf of the state.” Lord Bach continues: “Sound Off  for Justice is a sensible, realistic proposal for cutting the amount of legal aid that we spend. What is the point of a legal aid system that does not protect the most vulnerable in our society?”

So what is a Sound Off? According to the campaign’s website it is any action that supports their campaign. You can join them on facebook or twitter. You can sign their letter to Ken Clarke or leave a voicemail for him. And you can lobby your MP. The campaign’s rallying cry is: “For 800 years the UK has taken pride in being a fair society where justice is for everyone – not just those who can afford it. The Government must not be allowed to play havoc with this ancient right when it is their responsibility to protect and uphold it. Join the fight to protect your right to legal aid and justice. Sound Off for Justice. Don’t be silenced in court.”

The campaign’s website can be found at:
soundoffforjustice.org

Last November Ken Clarke took his knife to legal aid. The extent of the reductions revealed in the Green Paper – £350m a year to be taken out of a £914m annual civil and family legal aid budget by 2014 – had been widely anticipated, but the scale of cuts both to scope and eligibility occasioned much dismay.
Linked with these cuts the Ministry of Justice announced a very detailed consultation paper ‘Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales’, aimed at providers of publicly funded legal services and others with an interest in the justice system. The consultation ran from 15 November 2010 to 14 February 2011. Thanks to archiving on the ilegal website it is possible to view the very detailed responses, universally opposed to the green paper and united in apprehension and foreboding.

The Child Poverty Action Group believe that the proposed reforms will have a negative impact on child poverty by reducing access to welfare rights and social welfare advice. “There is no alternative source of funding for welfare rights services; if legal aid is cut, law centres, citizens advice bureaux and advice centres will shut down, local authorities’ welfare rights units will go.” The Citizens Advice Bureaux submit that social welfare law raises complex legal issues, and problems are often extremely serious to users of the justice system. Limiting the scope of issues with which legal aid funded advisers can help means they will not be able to solve people’s problems fully, as many clients experience multiple problems across different civil justice and social welfare scope areas.

Gingerbread, the national charity working with single parent families, is concerned that the loss of legal aid in private family law proceedings threatens the vital role of the family court as the final arbiter in difficult, complex or intractable parental disputes. “Approximately 10 per cent of separating parents use the family courts to resolve disputes over residence and contact. These families are often the ones facing the most difficult and extreme situations which involve high levels of dispute and/or child protection issues. If these proposals are implemented, access to justice will be severely curtailed for literally thousands of parents and their children.”

Rights of Women oppose the proposed changes, claiming that they are discriminatory and will entrench inequality, with the disabled, poor and marginalised disproportionately affected. Women will be at greater risk of violence and an important check to abuses of power and incompetence will be lost. While welcoming the proposed helpline they are “strongly opposed” to the move to a single telephone gateway. “What provision will be made for those without access to a telephone?” they ask. “How are asylum-seekers or those with an insecure immigration status supposed to access advice and representation? How are children – for example, separated children seeking asylum in the UK – supposed to use the helpline? How likely is it that a woman experiencing domestic or sexual violence will be able to disclose this to a (male?) operator?”

The Association of Lawyers for Children submit that the proposals take little or no account of the complexities of society today, will have major regressive impacts and should not be considered further until after the Family Justice Review has published its final report. In similar vein, the Royal College of  Psychiatrists do not accept the distinction that seeks to suggest that unless there is actual domestic violence then contact and residence disputes should be outside the purview of legal aid. “These matters are crucial to children’s lives. They are dependent and have no power in the situation. If their resident parent is coerced and appropriate resolution of the matter, if necessary by the courts, is not supported by the State, then the risk of mental health harm is much higher for the child.”

For these and many more responses go to ilegal at:
http://ilegal.org.uk/

The government is legally required to produce an equality impact assessment examining the effects of any proposed major reforms. The assessment relating to the proposed major reduction in legal aid was published in draft form when the green paper came out last November.

The government has proposed wide-ranging changes to reduce spending by excluding from eligibility legal advice and representation in some categories of case and save £350m a year out of a £914m annual civil and family legal aid budget by 2014. Out go private family law cases, including divorce and child residence cases, unless domestic violence, forced marriage or child abduction is involved. Out go clinical negligence cases. Other categories to face the chop are education, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, and welfare benefits, except where there is a risk to anyone’s safety or liberty, or a risk of homelessness.
 
The Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment makes no bones that the principal driver for reform is financial. It acknowledges that the key groups likely to be affected by the proposals are legal aid clients with matters falling in the categories of law to be removed from the scope of legal aid funding. It admits that tackling disputes in different ways, or of disputes remaining unaddressed, may lead to a deterioration of case outcomes, which might be less fair than beforehand. It also admits that legal aid recipients are amongst the most disadvantaged in society, reflecting both the nature of the problems they face as well as the eligibility rules for legal aid. “Clients who no longer receive legal aid might potentially experience a negative impact on their health. This may stem from the outcomes of disputes being resolved less fairly and this having an adverse impact on health due to the subject matter of the dispute, e.g. housing, employment.” Women are more likely to be affected by the proposals than men. Of those clients who would be affected by the civil proposals, 57% are women and 42% men.

Quoted in the ‘Guardian’, Emma Scott, director of Rights of Women, which is campaigning against the changes, said: “We know already that in family law women are the majority of applicants for legal aid. In 2006, 62% of all applications for legal aid were for women. If you remove legal aid for women to sort out the finances after marriages break down, we know it’s really difficult to represent yourself.”  She also warned against the redefinition of abuse under the proposals. “What they are saying is that legal aid for family law cases will continue to be available where domestic violence is a feature, but they define it as woman being at risk of physical harm. It’s absolutely far too narrow. Psychological abuse is widely recognised by this government, and the UN, as abuse, but this change doesn’t,” she said. The shadow solicitor general, Catherine McKinnell, said: “I believe that [these] legal aid proposals are part of a wider trend, evident under this government, whereby cuts – undertaken for political, not purely economic, reasons – are being targeted at vulnerable people not able to fight back.”

The full text of the MoJ’s Impact Assessment can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/legalaidiascope.pdf

The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) is the representative organisation of around 1 million European lawyers through its member bars and law societies from 31 full member countries, and 11 further associate and observer countries.

The Council holds as first principle that access to justice is a fundamental right, an essential part and instrument of human rights, stipulated and protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 6 of the ECHR provides for free access to justice for any individual, without regard to his or her social status or economic position. Legal aid is an essential tool in ensuring such access and the Council considers it the duty of states and governments to guarantee, organise and finance such legal-aid systems, which permit those with the least means to obtain access to justice.

A meeting of the CCBE in Brussels at the end of last month was addressed by Europe’s commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, Viviane Reding. She said: “Justice is a right, but without the means to pay for it, it is denied.”
Toon Musschoot, the representative of the Belgian Minister of Justice, said: “Justice is a public service and, as such, it must receive particular political attention, both in terms of quality and in terms of means.” Council President José-María Davó-Fernández called on governments and EU institutions to pay more than lip-service to legal aid and to deliver on what they have committed to in fundamental rights instruments.

The Council made specific recommendations to achieve Union wide equality of legal aid provision. Firstly legal aid should be dealt with as a fundamental right that guarantees access to justice and allows real and effective defence, granted to all irrespective of residence or nationality. A specific EU budget line should be set up to ensure the development of a European legal aid scheme and to support national schemes within Member States. Legal aid coverage should be available for all legal areas, jurisdictions and alternative dispute resolutions, including the assistance of a lawyer at all stages of the proceedings, the assistance of experts, translation and interpretation, and other trial costs, with specific coverage for additional costs arising out of cross-border trials. Common minimum standards should be set for granting legal aid within the territory of the EU. And there should be support for specific training for lawyers who provide services in the framework of legal aid.

Writing in the ‘Law Gazette’, Jonathan Rayner examines the possibility that the EU pledge to set mandatory levels of civil and criminal legal aid for member states from 2013 could cut across government proposals for drastic UK savings. He quotes the Law Society’s head of legal aid policy Richard Miller as saying: “The UK government’s proposed cuts to legal aid will put us out of step with the rest of Europe, which is embarking on a programme of broadening access to publicly funded representation, not shrinking it. There is a real danger that the proposed cuts will make us dip below the minimum standards imposed by the EU. We will have to make a humiliating U-turn and drag ourselves back up to an acceptable level.”

On Monday Ken Clarke took his knife to legal aid. The scale of the reductions revealed in the Green Paper  – £350m a year to be taken out of a £914m annual civil and family legal aid budget by 2014 – had been widely anticipated. The total bill of civil and criminal legal aid currently runs to £2.1bn a year, and a substantial contribution towards the reduction of 23% over four years in the Department’s budget was inevitable.

So far so predictable. But the surprises come in the parts of the legal aid budget that he has decided to protect. In his Commons statement he said: “I do not propose any changes to the scope of criminal legal aid… I plan to retain legal aid for asylum cases, for debt and housing matters where someone’s home is at immediate risk and for mental health cases. It will still be provided where people face intervention from the state in their family affairs that may result in their children being taken into care, and for cases involving domestic violence or forced marriage. I also propose that legal aid should remain available for cases where people seek to hold the state to account by judicial review and for some cases involving discrimination that are currently in scope. Legal assistance to bereaved families in inquests, including for deaths of active service personnel, will also remain in scope.”

The axe falls elsewhere, and the criterion is those areas that are not considered of sufficient priority to justify funding at the taxpayer’s expense. Out go private family law cases, unless domestic violence, forced marriage or child abduction is involved. Out go clinical negligence cases. Other categories to face the chop are education, employment, immigration, some debt and housing issues, and welfare benefits, except where there is a risk to anyone’s safety or liberty, or a risk of homelessness. According to the ‘Guardian’, there will be a reduction of 246,000 private family law cases predicted to save £178 m a year; a reduction in welfare and debt cases of 123,000 cases predicted to save £22m a year; around 43,700 fewer immigration cases predicted to save £18m a year; and 6,100 clinical negligence cases a year, saving £17m a year. These are the deepest and the most far reaching cuts since legal aid was created.

In response to the proposals of the coalition government, Clark’s Labour shadow Sadiq Khan said that they too would have cut legal aid, so it is a done deal. Opposition can only come from pressure groups. The Law Society said the changes to funding civil litigation confirmed their worst fears and is considering strategies for defending access to justice against the proposed cuts and responding in detail the Green Paper. Peter Walsh of Action against Medical Accidents said:  “Whatever the Ministry of Justice would save by scrapping legal aid will cost the NHS many times more. At the same time, the overall effect of changes will hit the poorest hardest, denying them access to justice even if they have been seriously harmed by negligence in the NHS.” Writing in the ‘Guardian’ Steve Hynes of the Legal Action Group said: “More than half a million people, half of all people assisted by civil legal aid each year, will lose out on being able to get help with housing, benefits, employment, debt and other legal problems. These are often truly desperate people.”

Linked with these cuts the Ministry of Justice has announced a very detailed consultation paper ‘Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid in England and Wales’, aimed at providers of publicly funded legal services and others with an interest in the justice system. The consultation runs from 15 November 2010 to 14 February 2011, and the full text can be found at:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/docs/legal-aid-reform-consultation.pdf

Ken Clarke has been a big beast in the Westminster jungle for a long time and he more than most understands how the pecking order works. A minister’s standing in the eyes of his own and other departments is directly related to his success in standing up to the Treasury in any budgetary negotiations. On this basis, the Ministry of Justice’s above average cut of 23% in this week’s spending review is not good news, but he is such a wily operator that it is most unlikely that he would be wrong footed by a rookie Chancellor of the Exchequer. The suspicion must therefore be that he has got more or less what he wanted.

The upshot is that the department’s budget, which is currently £8.9bn a year, will fall to £7bn by 2014/15, seeing on average a 6% reduction in each of the four years covered by the spending review. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the MoJ will seek to make savings by reform of sentencing, improving the treatment given to mentally disordered offenders and through the increased use of public/private sector initiatives to reduce re-offending. The £1.3bn funding to maintain the current prison estate will continue, but plans to build a new 1,500 capacity prison have been put on hold. There will, he said, be reform to the criminal justice system, the closure of underused courts and a reduction in the legal aid bill. The Law Officers Department, comprising the Offices of the Attorney General and Solicitor General, will see a 25% reduction to its budget, and the Crown Prosecution Service will be required to greatly reduce its cost base. He said there needed to be access to justice but at a fair cost to the tax payer.
As always, the devil will be in the detail, and that will be revealed next month when the department concludes the consultations on reductions in legal aid and the proposed closure of 157 magistrates and crown courts. Already it is clear that there will be a saving of £350m in the legal aid bill and that most, if not all, the programme of court closures will be carried out. The department has produced outline plans for changes to court business hours, including weekend and evening sessions, in the forthcoming magistrates courts business strategy with the aim of improving access to justice and making greater use of the court estate. Other key priorities are the saving of £1bn from administration and frontline efficiency, including a one third reduction in administration, meaning 14,000 jobs will go; the courts and tribunals system will be brought together in a single agency; and the central London estate will be reduced from 18 buildings to four, saving £40m.

Legal aid has never been a vote winner, so it was an all too easy target in the government’s spending review. Law Society president Linda Lee said: “While the figure of £350m is less than some had feared, losing this amount of money from the system will inevitably prove to be a significant blow to legal service provision and access to justice. A creaking system is going to be less able to deliver the needs of the vulnerable in society. It is a basic feature of a democratic society which supports the rule of law that vulnerable people, whether they are children, or have mental health or housing problems, are accused of crimes or have suffered loss, are able to have access to legal advice and representation to secure justice.” For his part, Secretary of State Clarke said: “We need to create a justice system that punishes the guilty, reduces re-offending, protects our liberties, and helps those most in need. Over the period of this spending settlement the Ministry of Justice will be transformed into a lean, transparent, and affordable department.”

The full text of the Spending Review can be found at:
http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sr2010_completereport.pdf