Raise civil legal aid thresholds and incentivise providers, says CILEX

The earnings and assets thresholds individuals must fall below to qualify for civil legal aid should be raised year on year, in line with the consumer price index, CILEX has said.

CILEX also recommended an expansion of civil legal aid to better cover areas such as employment, education and private family law, and for the means test currently used by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) to be “holistically re-assessed to ensure that it is reasonable and proportionate”, especially for those on low or erratic incomes.

Responding in February to a call for evidence by the Ministry of Justice as part of its review of civil legal aid, CILEX argued that fundamental failings in the system were leaving vulnerable people without access to justice and recommended several ways to improve it.

The earnings and assets thresholds have remained unchanged since 2012, so inflation and wage increases have meant an ever-diminishing number of individuals are eligible. The response said this meant legal aid deserts were appearing across the country as legal services providers pulled out of this underfunded field and desperate people were having to turn to free legal clinics, law schools and charities, which were in turn struggling to meet demand.

CILEX argued that advice deserts should be tackled by “incentivised packages” for new and existing practitioners and that the overall civil legal aid budget should be increased, returning fees on a real-terms, case-by-case basis back to their 2012 level.

CILEX president Emma Davies warned that “the civil legal aid system is currently facing the real possibility of collapse. Vulnerable people are already struggling to access legal advice and without much needed reform, even more will be left without access to justice”.

She said CILEX wanted to “see the government take a serious look at the impact the current system is having on the public and the legal profession and make changes to thresholds, fee levels and the means-tested system as a whole to ensure the availability of quality, specialist legal advice for those in most need.”

CILEX also recommended forming a Civil Legal Aid Review Board, similar to that now in place for criminal legal aid, to “de-politicise the issues around civil legal aid and focus on building the best possible and most efficient system”. This should have the statutory right to set civil legal aid fees and oversee the work of the LAA in relation to civil fees.

Other recommendations included lowering thresholds to access advice on mediation and other alternative dispute resolution to help resolve issues more quickly and for the government to measure the downstream impact of the lack of legal aid on the likes of local authorities, charities, the police, the NHS and MPs.