Legal Aid Newsletter | August 2026
Welcome to your August 2026 edition of the Legal Aid newsletter from Resolution.
We will continue to put any issues you’d like us to raise to the LAA. If you have any feedback from this newsletter, or would like our team to look into any problems you face, please email us.
Register for LAA High Cost Family Clinic by 9 September
The High Cost Family Clinic on 16 September offers the opportunity to book a virtual 20-minute appointment with experienced LAA case managers to discuss your current High Cost Family cases.
Registrations are limited and the deadline is 5pm on Wednesday 9 September 2026.
Updates to the Civil Means Assessment Guidance
The LAA has re-issued the Civil Means Assessment Guidance to include:
- Updates to sections 1.5 and 3.6, and appendices 9, 11 and 12 to reflect roll-out of Universal Credit to replace legacy benefits
- Update to Section 12 – Emergency representation, to reflect the Civil Legal Aid (Procedure)(Amendment) Regulations 2026 reversing certain business contingency arrangements
- Update to Section 11 to streamline guidance on 1999 and 1988 Act certificates.
- Update to appendix 3 to remove old benefits
- New Appendix 15 – Civil contingency arrangements – contributions and emergency representation
Child Focused Courts – delegated functions
The LAA has updated the table of delegated authorities to support the grant of legal representation exclusively for Child Focused Model cases (previously known as Private Law Pathfinder).
This applies where a decision to grant legal aid has already been made up to Family Help (Higher). See Resolution’s July 2026 legal aid newsletter for more information.
Changes to Civil Apply and important change to CCMS in future
From Tuesday 11 August, you will now be able to edit means information from the final review page. This includes two sections:
- financial assessment
- capital and assets
The LAA says that, following feedback from legal aid practitioners, they are introducing new features to make Civil Apply applications easier to edit before submission. This builds on the changes introduced for Merits in July and allows you to edit more sections before submitting your application.
When checking your application, you can update information, correct mistakes and make changes without having to restart it.
Notice of Future Change to Draft Submissions in CCMS
The LAA will be re-introducing measures to automatically remove draft submissions in CCMS after a lapse in time. This re-introduces the process previously in place before the cyber incident. The LAA says they will give prior notice before implementing this change but wanted to bring this to your attention in advance.
When the measures are introduced, draft submissions will be removed after the following number of days:
- 42 days Applications
- 84 days Bills
- 42 days Amendments
- 28 days Outcomes
- 28 days POAs
- 90 days Notification Attachments
- 10 days Provider Documents
The LAA advises you to review all draft submissions, and these can be retrieved by searching with case reference numbers. This includes draft submissions under old CCMS usernames. Re-saving the draft submission will restart the clock.
Resolution working for you – travel and subsistence
The LAA is conducting its annual review of subsistence and travel rates. We are asking them to put up the mileage rate so that it matches HMRC’s approved mileage rate for 2026-27 of 55p per mile.
We have also asked them to review the hotel rates in major cities as members tell us the current rates can only be found with considerable advance notice, making them impractical in many cases.
Help the Law Society’s vital research on legal aid bureaucracy
The Law Society has commissioned Frontier Economics to research the costs associated with the burden of legal aid billing processes and supervision requirements and how these processes affect providers’ willingness to take on legal aid work.
The research aims to gather evidence on the administrative pressures faced by legal aid providers and to identify where reform could have the greatest practical impact.
Your input is hugely valuable for this work, and the Law Society invites you to complete this survey to provide robust evidence on the scale of the issues and on where administrative changes could make the greatest difference. It is anticipated that the survey will take approximately 30-45 minutes to complete.
Counter-fraud and misuse of legal aid
The LAA has removed the civil representations webpage and consolidated the information with the Legal Aid Agency’s Counter Fraud reporting pages.
It is hoped that this will simplify the way members of the public raise concerns about legal aid applications by providing a single, clearer route for reporting suspected fraud or misuse of public funds.
LAA CEO to change role
Civil Service World reported in July that Legal Aid Agency chief executive Jane Harbottle CBE is being drafted in to “provide permanent operational command” as director general responsible for civil service pensions.
Director of Legal Aid Casework annual report 2025 to 2026
The Director of Legal Aid Casework, the LAA’s CEO has published her report for 2025-26. This includes some notable cases concerning legal aid during the year.
LAA tender for peer reviewers
The LAA has extended the tender deadline for peer reviewers in Crime, Family, Housing, Immigration/Asylum and Mental Health.
If you want to apply for a contract starting 1 March 2027, you must submit your application by 3 September 2026. The tender will remain open until 2035, with contracts starting on the first of March each year until 2036.
Tender for new inquest contracts
The LAA is inviting tenders for contracts to deliver work in the inquests category of law under the 2024 Standard Civil Contract. This supports the Public Office (Accountability) Bill and the LAA expects it to be one of the biggest expansions of legal aid provision in over a decade.
The LAA is launching this procurement before Royal Assent to make sure enough providers are ready to deliver services as soon as possible once the legislation is in force.
Changes to CBAM and Crime Supervisor Guidance
Following discussions with the Association of Prison Lawyers (APL), the LAA has updated the Criminal Bills Assessment Manual (CBAM) to provide greater clarity and practical guidance.
The LAA says they have also reduced the administrative burden on providers across all criminal legal aid categories relating to remuneration for administrative activities, including completing forms and other interactions with the LAA. The changes align criminal legal aid guidance more closely with existing civil legal aid arrangements.
We have amended the general principles in CBAM relating to the assessment of costs for telephone calls and letters, having drawn on wording used in civil guidance to help ensure a consistent approach.
The crime supervision guidance includes paragraphs from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) guidance on effective supervision. They have updated this in line with the changes the SRA made on 12 June 2026, following the Court of Appeal decision in CILEX and others v Mazur and others.