The long-awaited review of the reckless and damaging cuts to legal aid made by the Coalition government was published last month, alongside a 'legal support action plan' to set out the way ahead for access to justice proposed by the Ministry of Justice.
Of the four objectives set for the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO), the government's review found that only one was achieved: making significant savings to the cost of legal aid. LASPO has been an unqualified success in this regard, reducing the legal aid budget from £2.1bn to £1.6bn; a real-terms cut of £950m between 2011 and 2018.
Less money spent on legal aid has, of course, meant far fewer people receiving publicly-funded legal advice and representation. In social welfare law including debt, benefits, employment and housing, the number of people receiving early advice fell from 573,737 in 2012/13 to 140,091 in 2016/17. Hundreds of millions of pounds saved, hundreds of thousands of people denied access to justice.
