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Abstract
This paper seeks to give an overview of the Legal Aid reform leading to the enactment of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (“LASPO”). It provides a context for the reforms heralded by consultation in 2010, and discusses the interplay with the simultaneous Family Justice Review. The paper goes on to look at the structural and constitutional changes brought about by the LASPO Act 2012, the impact on the Courts, and the removal of many cases from the 'scope' of public funding leading to the increase in the numbers of Litigants in Person. The paper discusses the ‘exceptional’ cases, the cases in which children are joined as parties, and mediation. The article looks briefly at the impact on the legal profession brought about by the legal aid reforms together with the reduction in fees under the Family Advocacy Scheme (also introduced in 2011).
Notes
1. Initially vested with the Law Society, then with the Legal Aid Board (1988), and then (post-1999) the Legal Services Commission.
2. £25m: This will remove advice in this category for 113,000 clients per annum.
3. 75,000 clients (i.e. unless there is an immediate risk to the home, significant amount of housing – a cut of a little under 40%).
4. This includes family reunion cases engaging Art. 8 and other visa cases. In Immigration it is in general all cases (other than asylum and detention). See further Meyler and Woodhouse, this issue.
5. Impact Assessment: Equality impacts: November 2010: our initial analysis of the impacts of the proposed changes on clients is that there is a potential disproportionate impact on women and BAME clients, in that the proportion of clients affected adversely by the proposed changes that fall within these groups is likely to be high relative to the proportion of people in those groups in the population.
6. Page 20, §46: The Government Response: CM8072.
7. Page 116, para. 21 (Annex B) The Government's Response.
8. Family Justice Review Interim Report §3.88.
9. §2.13 of the Government's Consultation Paper ‘Proposals for the Reform of Legal Aid’.
10. Family Justice Review Interim Report, §2.47.
11. Family Justice Review Interim Report, §5.61.
12. §106 Interim Report of the Family Justice Review (p. 20).
13. All Babies Count [November 2011].
14. FJR report/NSPCC report/marriage statistics.
15. Family Justice Review Interim Report §74 (p. 15).
16. Family Justice Review Interim Report §5.125.
17. Annexe B, para. 2: The Government Response: CM 8072.
18. Annex B, para. 3: The Government Response: CM 8072.
19. The Government Response: CM 8702, §45 p. 20.
20. See Julia Brophy's research for her ‘Review of child care proceedings under the Children Act 1989’ (University of Oxford) (May 2006).
21. See IAMoJ28, para. 39.
24. The Government Response §138, p. 40.
25. Note that the ‘poorer outcomes’ finding was NOT mentioned in this section of the Response paper.
26. The Government Response Chapter 4, §16, p. 115.
27. See President's Practice Direction: Representation of Children in Family Proceedings (2004) reported at [2004] 1 FLR 1188.
28. With particular thanks to Jo Miles, University Lecturer, Director of Studies and Fellow in Law, Trinity College, Cambridge, for her assistance with the narrative in this part of the article.
29. The ACPO definition above (or something very close to it), had been adopted by many official and governmental bodies, including the Association of Chief Police Officers: Guidance on Investigating Domestic Abuse (2008); the Crown Prosecution Service Policy for Prosecuting Cases of Domestic Violence (2010); the Ministry of Justice, in Domestic Violence: A Guide to Civil Remedies and Criminal Sanctions (February 2003, updated March 2007); and the UK Border Agency, in Victims of Domestic Violence: Requirements for Settlement Applications.
30. Lord Slynn Memorial Lecture: November 2010.
31. See the Response of the Judges Council to the Legal Aid Reform consultation.
32. Law Society v. LSC & Others [2010] EWHC 2550 (Admin).
33. Annex H of the Government's response to the Consultation §4, p. 227.
34. King's College Survey: 2008: This is a quantitative study of the work of the family bar in 2008, and the current functioning of the legal aid graduated fee system for barristers in family law cases. The study was commissioned in June 2008 by the Family Law Bar Association (FLBA), and was undertaken by researchers in the King's Institute for the Study of Public Policy (KISPP) at King's College London, from July 2008 to December 2008. Data were gathered through surveys of (i) chambers where any family work is undertaken, (ii) barristers who undertook any family work (whether publicly funded or privately paid) in the year to 30 August 2008 and (iii) all family work completed by barristers in England and Wales in a random week, known as the ‘Week-At-A-Glance’.
35. Jenga is the game where wooden blocks are stacked and removed one at a time until the tower collapses.
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