- Pay increase proposed for criminal legal aid solicitors
carrying out vital police station work
- Reforms will also see substantial increase in Youth Court
legal advice spending
- Funding part of Government’s response to the 2021 Criminal
Legal Aid Review
The proposals are part of the government’s second phase of the
response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review
(CLAIR), with the additional funding allocated in 2022.
The review found that existing police station and Youth Court fee
schemes are outdated and no longer reflect the complexity of the
work carried out by today’s legal profession, creating unfairness
and disincentivising legal practitioners from taking on more
complicated cases.
Currently, fees do not appropriately differentiate between case
complexity meaning a lawyer spending 30 minutes on a shoplifting
case and 5 hours on a murder trial would likely receive the same
fixed fee for both jobs.
The fee system is also outdated as it involves solicitors
navigating over two hundred different fees across England and
Wales, each representing a different police station location with
the pay-out for neighbouring stations varying widely. This means
solicitors can receive vastly different amounts in similar areas
for working on similar cases.
Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice said:
Solicitors working in police stations play a critical role in
ensuring access to justice by giving people legal advice, often
at antisocial hours and at a moment’s notice. It is right that
they receive a substantial pay increase to reflect the importance
and complexity of their work.
This longer-term investment will also help ensure solicitors are
paid more fairly in the Youth Court with the enhanced fee helping
to recruit and retain solicitors who do essential work to uphold
the fairness of our justice system.
The bulk of the investment - £16 million - will be used to
increase fees for solicitors working in these police stations. In
line with the Review’s recommendations, the consultation also
proposes to simplify the different police station fees by
increasing lowest charges in the scheme.
On top of this, £5.1 million has been allocated to increase the
pay for solicitors taking on Youth Court legal aid work for the
most serious offences by £548 per case. This will help reflect
the complexity of the work done in the Youth Court which can deal
with murder and sexual assault trials. These fee increases aim to
encourage solicitor firms to specialise in this area to better
serve the children and teenagers they represent.
This funding increase will apply to new work from summer 2024 as
part of the second phase of government plans focusing on
longer-term systemic reform.
Notes to editors
- £548 (not inc. VAT) fee increase in the Youth Court.
- The Government is consulting on these proposals for 8 weeks
and the consultation can be found on gov.uk
- In December 2020, the government launched an independent
review into the sustainability of the criminal legal aid sector
and the report was published in November 2021. It looked at ways
to make the profession a more attractive career choice and
attempt to make long lasting changes, with the aim of ending the
ongoing back and forth on pay levels, which can lead to
industrial action.
- In March 2022, the Government published its response to CLAIR
and launched a consultation setting out its proposals. This
announcement is pre-allocated money as part of our government
response to CLAIR in 2022.
In July 2022, the government published an interim response to the
consultation which led to a 15% increase to most fees from 30
September 2022. The Government then published its full response
in November 2022 which set out some of the proposals which it is
now consulting on as part of the Crime Lower consultation. This
consultation can be found here: Response to Independent
Review of Criminal Legal Aid - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
