Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Memorandum submitted by Legal Services Commission

(LA 46)

Legal Aid, Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Bill – Public Evidence Session

At my appearance before the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill Committee on Tuesday 12 July 2011, I committed to provided further information covering:

1. the percentage of positive outcomes for legal aid Social Welfare Law (SWL) cases, and,

2. the proportion of people receiving legal aid funding for SWL cases who are female, or have a disability.

Please find attached, under cover of this letter, two spreadsheets containing this information. For 2. I have also provided details of the proportion of people receiving legal aid who are BAME.

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) defines SWL as cases in the: Community Care, Debt, Employment, Housing and Welfare Benefits categories of law. The information provided is based on legal aid provider billing to the LSC in the 2009-10 financial year. There are a number of footnotes provided with the data, to aid understanding.

There are a number of small differences between the information provided for civil representation at 1. and those previously published by the LSC in our 2009-10 Statistical Information Pack. This is due to the different times of data extraction from our systems.

As well as an overall total for each category, I have also provided a breakdown to show:

· Legal Help – advice and assistance about a legal problem, not including representation or advocacy in proceedings.

· Civil Representation – legal aid that pays for a solicitor or barrister to speak on behalf of a client in court, if they are taking or defending court proceedings. This can be provided in a number of different ways.

· Community Legal Advice (CLA) – a service established, maintained and developed by the LSC for the purpose of promoting the availability to individuals of (legal) services and in particular, for securing that individuals have access to services that effectively meet their needs, excluding services required to be funded by the Criminal Defence Service.

I am copying this letter and attachments to Yvonne Fovargue MP, the member of the Committee who requested the information.

Spreadsheet showing percentage of positive outcomes for legal aid Social Welfare Law (SWL) cases

Spreadsheet showing the proportion of people receiving legal aid funding for SWL cases who are female, or have a disability

July 2011