Legal aid expenditure 2012 to 2014 (FOI)

​​Request

How much money was spent on legal aid in 2012, 2013 and 2014? Please can you provide figures for each year separately.

Response

Expenditure by the Jersey legal profession

The legal aid scheme is provided by the legal profession in Jersey and is administered by the Bâtonnier, with most duties delegated to the Acting Bâtonnier. The Acting Bâtonnier, on assessing a client to be eligible for legal aid, issues a legal aid certificate to their assigned lawyer. This entitles the client to a reduced scheme of charges from their lawyer as specified in the Legal Aid Guidelines of the Law Society of Jersey.

At the Judicial Greffe we have no knowledge of any money spent by lawyers in fulfilling their obligations under the legal aid scheme, so these amounts are not included in our response. More information about legal aid in Jersey may be found on the following:

Legal Aid website
Access to Justice Review website

Expenditure from public funds

A. Contribution to administration of the legal aid scheme
Over the three years in question, the Judicial Greffe has made an annual payment of £50,000 to the Acting Bâtonnier towards administration costs of the legal aid scheme including legal aid administrator.

B. Payment of case costs
The aggregate figures we have do not differentiate between payments made to lawyers acting for a client who has a legal aid certificate and those made because the Court has ordered payment to be made from public funds by virtue of a Law or a Rule of Court which applies whether or not the client has a legal aid certificate. Note that in practice the majority of payments are to lawyers acting for clients who do have legal aid certificates and lawyers acting for children/parents in public law proceedings (where child is to be taken into care, subject to a Secure Accommodation Order etc.) whatever the authority for the payment.

The aggregate figures we have available for the years requested fall under three headings relating to the type of proceedings. The sums under these headings for each of the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 are shown in the table below:

Notes

1. Some Legal Aid – Civil may be recovered depending on any settlement the client may receive in their action.
2. Legal Aid – Civil and Legal Aid – Criminal include payments for disbursements such as medical records or expert reports.
3. As well as payments by virtue of the client having a legal aid certificate (i.e. payments from the ‘legal aid vote fund’) the following may also be included in the above figures under each type:

• Legal Aid – Civil: payments under the Children (Jersey) Law 2002 to lawyers acting for children/JFCAS in private law family cases.
• Public Law Children Cases: payments under the Children (Jersey) Law 2002 to lawyers acting for children/JFCAS in public law family cases.
• Legal Aid – Criminal: payments where the Court orders costs to be paid from public funds by virtue of the Costs in Criminal Cases (Jersey) Law 1961 or the Magistrate’s Court (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Jersey) Law 1949 to lawyers acting for defendants who are acquitted or appellants whose appeals are successful.
• any of the above headings: costs of a Court appointed amicus curiae (“friend of the court”), being a lawyer appointed by the Court to assist the Court in ensuring the effective administration of justice with a litigant in person.