PRESS RELEASE: Ministry of Justice and Legal Services Commission

LEGAL AID CHANGES WILL FOCUS HELP ON MOST VULNERABLE FAMILIES AND CHILDREN

Legal aid fees paid to family barristers are to be differently allocated to focus help to the most vulnerable families and children, and to combat rises in the family legal aid bill Legal Aid Minister Lord Bach and Legal Services Commission (LSC) Chief Executive Carolyn Regan announced today.

The changes to the Family Graduated Fee Scheme, which governs payments to barristers for family legal aid work will:

· increase basic fees for cases relating to child protection and children in local authority care

· control expenditure on private family law disputes such as child contact and residence/custody disputes between parents, by reducing some of the extra payments that barristers can claim for undertaking these

· reduce expenditure on cases in which divorcing couples have disputes over property, by abolishing some of the extra payments that barristers can claim for dealing with these, and by reducing others

These changes, proposed by the Government in 2008 and fully consulted on since, are expected to generate savings to the taxpayer of £6.5 million per year, while maintaining existing services to the public.

Announcing the changes Lord Bach said:

"These changes are part of the Government's drive to ensure that public funds are focused on the most vulnerable.

"Legal aid for child protection cases must always come first.

"We will be better able to control payment levels for other work, on custody or contact disputes between parents at loggerheads - which over the last five years have been much, much higher than expected."