Legal aid falls but drug charges rise

Tuesday 31 August 2021

Increasing sums of public money are being paid out in legal aid for people charged with drug offences.

It comes in a year that the Legal Aid Service's overall expenditure fell across the board, underspending its 2020 Budget of £2,832,000 by £449,000.

This is broken down as an underspend of £322,000 for civil expenditure and £127,000 for criminal expenditure. A number of anticipated increases in service use did not materialise, however requests for legal assistance with drug cases rose throughout the year.

“It is difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons for our unusually large underspend but inevitably the period of lockdown from March to June 2020 was an influencing factor,” said Legal Aid Administrator Lucy Haywood. 

“For criminal matters at the beginning of lockdown we saw a drop in the number of applications received but activity gradually increased from the middle of lockdown onwards. 

"However, there was also a noticeable increase in the funding of drug related matters and this trend continued throughout 2020.”

Pictured: The Legal Aid Service cost £521,000 less in 2020 than the year before. 

In recent years, funding for family proceedings in the Domestic Proceedings Magistrates Court has been the busiest civil matter. 

“However, there was a marked decrease in the number of applications to fund family matters received during lockdown,” said Ms Haywood.

“We were expecting to be inundated with applications once lockdown was lifted but this did not occur and this trend continued during 2020. Overall we processed less applications in 2020 compared with 2019.

“We were also expecting to receive a large volume of applications for Domestic Violence Injunctions during the lockdown period as a result of family units spending more time together under the same roof but, again, this was not the case.”

There was a general reduction in legal aid applications during the covid-hit year, during which the island spent three months in lockdown. 569 Green Forms for civil and criminal matters were processed and approved, compared with 813 signed off in 2019. However, direct comparisons will not always give a clear reflection of demand, as some cases will take months to progress, while others will take years.

“The majority of applications for a full legal aid certificate are granted but some are refused,” said Ms Haywood.

“For those matters that are refused, we receive minimal annual requests for a review of the Administrator’s decision. Only one matter was referred to the Legal Aid Commissioner for a review in 2020 who upheld our initial decision to refuse legal aid funding in those particular circumstances.”

Pictured: Around a quarter of a million pounds was spent in 2020 funding legal aid for defendants in drug cases. 

Another factor behind the reduction in spending was the reduction in case experts having to be brought over from the UK. Because of the pandemic, off-island travel was limited and that meant that the usual expenses incurred through travel costs and accommodation, for example, did not materialise. 

While this might highlight a future saving opportunity, Ms Haywood emphasised that there continue to be cases where off-island professionals needs to meet the client face-to-face. 

"In terms of the funding of experts approved by us in both civil and criminal court proceedings, owing to the restrictions on entering the island through the majority of 2020, there was a reduction in expenses claimed by the experts in that we were only funding their professional fees.

"Some experts were undertaking assessments of parties and giving evidence at court hearings via videolink/skype/zoom but other assessments were deemed inappropriate to be undertaken remotely and were postponed until the expert could meet a party in person."