PAC report highlights legal aid gaps as Bar Council warns workforce pressures are worsening
The Bar Council has warned that the legal aid system is no longer sustainable after a new parliamentary report raised concerns about continuing gaps in provision and the long-term resilience of justice services.
A report by the Public Accounts Committee concluded that the Ministry of Justice remains unconvinced it has done enough to secure the future of legal aid and highlighted concerns about its understanding of the real-world effects of earlier reforms.
Responding to the findings, Kirsty Brimelow KC, Chair of the Bar Council, said legal aid remained a vital public service but was not on a sustainable footing. She said barristers working in the system remained committed to supporting vulnerable people, although that commitment was under increasing strain.
Brimelow said civil and family legal aid fees are now worth around half of their mid-1990s value. She also noted inflation of 26.5% since 2021 and a 10.8% decrease in spending on criminal legal aid in individual cases. She called for index linking or the creation of a pay review body so that legal aid fees could keep pace with inflation.
The Committee’s findings reflected concerns previously raised by the Bar Council about the sustainability of the legal aid workforce. Research by the organisation found that many family barristers were working weeks of around 70 hours while receiving comparatively low hourly rates. Some practitioners were cross-subsidising publicly funded work through private practice in order to remain in legal aid work.
Brimelow warned that experienced barristers were leaving legal aid practice, which she said risked leaving people without advice or representation in cases involving life-changing legal issues.
The Committee also raised concerns about the resilience of Ministry of Justice systems following a cyber-attack affecting the Legal Aid Agency. It questioned whether sufficient funding had been allocated to address weaknesses identified after the incident.
Brimelow said the government needed to set out how it would improve system resilience. She added that confidence in the administration of legal aid depended on secure and reliable systems and warned that weaknesses risked undermining access to justice further.
She also said access to justice should not depend on location, income, or the ability to navigate complex digital systems. She called on the government to respond to the report by investing in legal aid, widening its scope, and ensuring fees reflected the work required.
Separately, the Committee criticised the Ministry of Justice’s handling of HMP Dartmoor. It described the decision to sign a 10-year lease on a prison known to have high radon levels as “catastrophic” and taken in “blind panic”, warning that taxpayers could face costs exceeding £100m for an unusable facility.
The Bar Council said it would continue to call for investment in legal aid, the reversal of cuts introduced under Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, and mechanisms to ensure fees keep pace with inflation.