Supporting individuals in cases going through the family courts was again the largest draw on the scheme, which cost the taxpayer £2.28m. last year, compared to £2.23m. in 2023.
The scheme is allocated an annual budget, set at £2.96m. for 2024, but given consistent underspends in recent years, this was cut to £2m. for 2025, even though the year will see the first increase in fees paid to advocates for some 20 years, rising from £167 an hour to £174.50.
Some 57% of the 2024 spend (£1.3m.) went on funding advocates to take civil law cases.
Funding support for criminal cases rose from £559,000 to £587,000.
There has been a reduction in legal aid funding for divorce cases, following the introduction of new divorce laws in July 2024, which allowed for ‘no fault’ divorces and for couples to process their own case without the involvement of a lawyer.
Numbers of clients supported were pretty similar to the previous years, with 232 on civil cases and 121 for criminal cases.
An independent review of the legal aid scheme was carried out in 2023. Only a few of its recommendations have so far been implemented, including the proposal to increase the fees paid to advocates supporting the scheme. The remainder sit with the Committee for Employment & Social Security.
They include addressing the issue of the low number of advocates prepared to take on legal aid cases – about 25 of more than 170 qualified advocates working in the island.
The annual report of the Legal Aid Services is presented as an appendix in the Billet for the October States meeting.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.