Drugs cases biggest call on legal aid

The total cost of the Guernsey Legal Aid Service in 2020 was £2.378m., according to its latest annual report.

This was a £454,000 underspend compared with a budget of £2.832m. This included an underspend of £322,000 for civil and £127,000 for criminal cases.

‘For criminal matters at the beginning of lockdown we saw a drop in the number of applications received but activity gradually increased from the middle of lockdown onwards,’ said Lucy Haywood, the service’s administrator, in the report.

‘However, there was also a noticeable increase in the funding of drug-related matters and this trend continued throughout 2020,’ she said.

Last year saw 56 drug-related criminal certificates processed compared with 37 in 2019.

The most active area in civil cases over the last few years had been the provision of funding for family proceedings, but Mrs Haywood said applications in that area fell last year.

‘We were expecting to be inundated with applications once lockdown was lifted but this did not occur and this trend continued during 2020. Overall, we processed fewer applications in 2020 compared with 2019.

‘We were also expecting to receive a large volume of applications for domestic violence injunctions during the lockdown period as a result of family units spending more time together under the same roof but, again, this was not the case.’

Another element that reduced total legal aid expenditure was a decrease in funding for experts.

That was because the service paid only their professional fees and not for travel or accommodation.

Some experts undertook assessments and gave evidence in court via video call. But others deemed this inappropriate for certain cases so their services were postponed until they could travel to Guernsey safely.

A considerable reduction was also seen in 'green forms', which provide applicants with up to two hours’ advice and assistance for both criminal and civil matters. In 2019, a total of 813 were processed, compared with 569 in 2020.

The number of criminal legal aid certificates in Alderney increased, with nine approved in 2020 compared with none in 2019.

Sark produced no criminal legal aid certificates, but it did process three civil legal aid inquiries compared with none in 2019, the annual report said.