The Criminal Legal Aid budget: 'Growing exponentially'?

On Friday morning the government number crunchers released a report which shows what our piece for More4 News also showed, which is that the amount the government spends on criminal legal aid "has fallen in real terms by 12 per cent over the past five years."

So why, I wonder, did Bridget Prentice, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, tell the Today Programme last month that the criminal legal aid spend was 'growing exponentially'? And why did Evan Davis, in his question to her on that issue, say it was as well?

And why, did the Legal Services Commission, on hearing that the legal aid spend on magistrates court and police station work in Greater Manchester had fallen, say the trend "was not borne out nationwide"? It is.

On the second point, I was able to ask the LSC. The response was two fold. Firstly, er, we're not exactly sure what was said to the Gazette back in September. Secondly, er, we were probably talking about the police station spend along (which has gone up and down, on its way down).

One week

Both points go some way to explaining how the government and its quangos have managed to cultivate the impression that criminal legal aid spending is spiralling out of control. But it is not.

Bear in mind the NHS budget is around £100 billion. The total legal aid budget, criminal and civil, is £2bn. So it would pay for around one week of the NHS.

Bear in mind also that the legal aid budget gives people access to justice, the ability to get justice, regardless of wealth, and the ability to live in a just society.

Immeasurable value

People's small justices, their day in court, their wrongs righted, are valuable to us all. And if they slowly evaporate, we don't notice. But if you cut the NHS budget, the quality of healthcare falls, people die, and we notice.

Rather like investigative journalism (a post for another day) people’s small, individual justices are of immense value to society, but if they disappear, you can't measure it happening, quantify it, or see it.

Until one day people are only getting small injustices, and suddenly there lots of small problems become one big problem.

So if we end up, as many lawyers fear we will, with a two-tier legal system, where the rich get the best legal representation, and the poor get the rest, because of legal aid reform, then the chances of that happening increase.

And if it does happen, then the government has failed us.

Greedy lawyers

Another impression the government likes to cultivate alongside the one that criminal legal aid spending is ballooning, is that of the fat-cat lawyer.

He exists. He is paid too much. He is fat, white, lazy, underworked and overpaid. But he works mostly on private legal cases and shares his industry with others who are not like him.

They earn far less, and care about providing people with their small justices, so as to provide society with its big justice. They are a dying breed. Those that already do this sort of law are finding it tougher and tougher to stay profitable. So they stop doing the legal aid work.

Those that may do this sort of law in future, the students, don’t fancy it. They cannot make enough money to pay for their long education to get the necessary qualifications. And because many law students just want to be fat-cat lawyers. A junior legal aid lawyer earns £25,000.

Flat fee

But some still do legally aided work, like the people at Just For Kids Law, who represent under-privileged kids.

They receive a flat fee for each case they work on. It doesn't matter whether the kid (or defendant if you prefer) in question is a genius or has learning difficulties and an IQ of 55.

Either way, his solicitor will receive the same amount of money to prepare his case and will be expected, by the government, to devote the same amount of time to preparing their cases. Will the kid with learning difficulties have such a solid, well-prepared defence as the boy genius? It’s doubtful.

And what is more, Just For Kids Law will be paid to prepare a defence according to how many papers the prosecution submits, with a certain amount of money paid for each sheet.

So if they are working on a case which doesn't involve a huge amount of prosecution paperwork, like for example a rape case, where there is only one statement and limited additional evidence, then they will be paid relatively little. It doesn't matter that the case may be hugely complicated but the prosecution paperwork doesn't reflect that. In the eyes of the state, it is another uniform case which receives another flat fee.

Easy targets

Cutting the legal aid budget, in public relations terms, is relatively easy. Nobody much knows or cares if you reduce the amount the taxpayer spends on criminals (and those just accused of being criminals) and the greedy lawyers who represent them.

It all sounds fair enough in principle. If they can't live within the rules of our society, why should we pay the costs for them to live outside those rules? And why should we pay already well-paid lawyers over the odds to help them on their way?

But of course, things are not that simple. Criminals aren't always criminals, greedy lawyers not always greedy. And the innocent are not always acquitted.