Civil legal aid: Towards a sustainable future
Resolution’s response to the Ministry of Justice's consultation considering increases to civil legal aid fees for Housing and Debt work, and Immigration and Asylum work.
Resolution has responded to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation considering increases to civil legal aid fees for Housing and Debt work, and Immigration and Asylum work.
The MoJ is proposing a significant increase to the rates paid for Housing & Debt (Housing) and Immigration & Asylum (Immigration) legal aid work.
This response was prepared by Resolution’s Legal Aid Committee comprising family law solicitors providing legal aid services and mediators providing legally aided family mediation. View our response in full.
Resolution welcomes the Minister’s comments in the Foreword to the consultation paper that “We are determined to nurse this critical sector back to health, rebuilding a legal aid system that is sustainable, effective and efficient, and that helps people to address their legal problems as quickly and as early as possible. A system that enables our excellent legal aid profession to do what it does best – providing high quality support and advice for the people who need it most.”
The consultation paper sets out a longed for proposal to increase civil legal aid rates for housing and immigration work. We agree that the position for housing and immigration lawyers and for those people needing their legal advice is dire. Even for them, it is anticipated that implementation of fee increases could take up to six months from the time the consultation response is published. The situation facing legal aid family lawyers and mediators offering legally aided family mediation, and more importantly for the families and children who need their services, is not much better. We would stress the need for a sustainable legal aid system to be more urgently addressed, and ask the Ministry of Justice to set out a clear timetable for investment and future investment in family and family mediation legal aid.
In particular, we note that the Ministry of Justice’s Family Deep Dive 3 March 2025 notes that ‘There has generally been a reduction in the number of active family legal aid firms over the period, with an overall decrease of 25%. The number of active family legal aid firms completing private family work has decreased by 28%, while the number of active family legal aid firms completing public family work has decreased by 23%. These are larger than the overall decrease of 22% for all active civil legal aid firms.’
Resolution,
March 2024