Legal Aid Newsletter | September 2026

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.

Justice Select Committee on Access to Justice: Legal Aid

Members may recall that Resolution submitted written evidence to the Justice Select Committee which has now reported and its recommendations include:

• Civil and family legal aid rates are fundamentally uneconomical for providers. Urgent action, of a greater scale than currently offered by the government, is required to retain even current levels of supply. As with eligibility, the government has failed to properly implement recommendations regarding improving system sustainability.Uplifting other civil legal aid fee schemes in line with housing and immigration increases is the minimum requirement to arrest the current lack of service provision and ongoing decline in the provider base. Fee increases should be retrospective, meaning they apply to work undertaken from the date on which the increase takes effect, rather than only to certificates granted after that date.

  Civil legal aid rates should be subject to regular independent review and uplift to ensure continued viability of providers.

• Legal aid capacity is significantly constrained across mediation. the Ministry of Justice must confirm how it monitors whether it has sufficient legally aided mediation capacity to meet demand; produce an assessment of the number of mediators it requires to deliver this vital service, and how it will arrest the consistent year-on-year decline in mediators offering legal aid.
• Access to family legal aid is essential to the government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls. Current eligibility rules, provider shortages and uneconomic remuneration mean that survivors of domestic abuse are often unable to secure representation when they most need it.The government’s forthcoming family justice strategy should include specific measures to improve access to legally aided advice and representation for survivors of domestic abuse, including fee uplifts and simplified evidence requirements.

Resolution working for you – travel and subsistence consultation

The LAA has conducted its annual review of travel and subsistence rates. Resolution is not one of the three consultative bodies under the civil contract; but we were able to feed in views from the Legal Aid Committee via the Law Society and LAPG.

Resolution’s Legal Aid Committee’s view is that this has increased the administration burden and also increased the cost of delivering legal aid services.

View Resolution’s feedback on travel and hotel and subsistence

Resolution working for you – updates from the Civil Contracts Consultative Group

Resolution members are represented at quarterly Civil Contracts Consultative Group meetings with the LAA.

This provides an opportunity for the LAA to update the representative groups and for us to put forward any issues raised by members.

At the latest meeting, the LAA provided more information, advice and tips on topics such as complex queries and Contact Means Expert, complex business means and how to record delegated functions under the Child Focused Courts model.

If you have any queries you would like us to raise anonymously with the LAA, please send an email to [email protected]

Read more

Civil schedules for 2026-27 are being sent out

Civil schedules for the 2026 to 2027 period are being sent to all current providers from 14 September 2026.

If you do not receive an updated schedule, you should contact your Contract Manager.

Peer review guides updated

Senior peer reviewers and independent peer review experts have worked with the LAA to update guidance underpinning the peer review process.

The Peer Review Quality Guides and criteria sheets used to assess and score files have been updated across the 5 categories of law currently reviewed: Crime, Family, Housing, Immigration/Asylum and Mental Health.

View LAA audits

New contact details for the Online Support Team

The LAA’s Online Support Team (OST) is changing its contact method for technical assistance.

From 28 September 2026, you need to submit technical support requests via: Submit a technical support request, rather than emailing OST.

The LAA says the form captures key information upfront, reducing follow-up queries, speeding up resolution times, and providing a more efficient support service.

Coming soon – article on legal aid in kinship care cases

The Legal Aid Committee has written an article on legal aid for legal advice/representation and mediation in cases involving kinship care – it’s full of useful practical information, so please do look out for it in the next edition of the Review.

Government funding for crime pupillages

The Government has announced £1.5 million to deliver up to 100 additional criminal law pupillages per year.

The scheme builds on the successful Council of the Inns of Court pupillage match-funding programme, providing dedicated support for pupillages across England and Wales.

The government funding will support additional training places that would not otherwise be available.

More information