In this first of a three part series our National Legal Aid Training Co-Ordinator, Kenny Shealey shares five key statistics from the fifth Legal Aid Agency Report which may surprise you. You can read a copy of the report here.
Number of legal aid applications processed
Over the past year the LAA processed over 500,000 applications for legal aid. This figure looks like a lot of applications for legal aid however more people need access to legal aid as a result of government cuts over the past 10 years on the type of work that is covered by legal aid, the threshold for legal aid and the requirements for domestic violence evidence.
Legal Aid Certificates Increase
Certificates granted for family work increased by 5% in January to March 2018 compared to the previous year. Public family law work makes up around three quarters of the family workload and over 80% of family expenditure
Increase in applications supported by evidence of domestic or child abuse
In January to March 2018, applications for civil representation supported by evidence of domestic or child abuse increased by 21% compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of these granted also increased by 14% compared to the same period of 2017.
Faster Legal Aid Processing Times
By working digitally and adopting simpler and smarter ways of working the LAA have processed 97% of applications for civil legal aid in 15 working days, processed 100% of applications for criminal legal aid in 2 working days and paid over 530,000 bills which equates to 98% of complete, accurate bills within 20 working days which exceeded the LAA’s target of 90%.
Two minutes and Twenty Four Seconds to Answer Your Call!
The LAA have claimed that on average the calls to the LAA were answered within 2 minutes 24 seconds for civil legal aid and 1 minute 50 seconds for criminal legal queries. I would imagine that many of you would disagree with this figure for the time you had to wait for the LAA to answer your calls!
Next week we share the Legal Aid Agency’s key strategic objectives summarised in their Fifth Annual Report.
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