When did you last get a pay rise? Last year? The year before?
The providers of civil legal aid have not had their fees increased by the government for … wait for it…twenty eight years.
Yes that is not a typo. 28 years.
The fees that legal aid providers can get from the government are the same today as they were in 1996.
Doing a rough inflation calculation, we reckon that legal aid fees should now be nearly TREBLE the fees being offered.
So if you can’t find a family mediation service which offers legal aid, it is because the fees are so low.
Family legal aid is a ‘loss maker’ for half of providers
Just one in three private law family legal aid providers cover their costs when they offer the service to clients.
They attribute this to a combination of low legal aid fees, the high cost of of delivering that legal aid and the delays in receiving payment from the government.
Those firms who still offer legal aid are only able to do so by subsidising the service using the money they make from other clients.