The Ministry of Justice is to give criminal legal aid solicitors working in police stations and youth courts a pay increase from this summer.
It will invest £16 million to increase fees for solicitors working in police stations, while it has allocated £5.1 million to augment pay for those taking on youth court legal aid work for the most serious offences by £548 per case.
The aim of this is to better reflect the complexity and seriousness of youth court work and encourage law firms to specialise in this area to better serve the children and teenagers they represent.
The increase will apply to new work undertaken later this year as part of the government’s second phase of the response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review. It found that existing police station and youth court fee schemes do not reflect the complexity of the work, and that solicitors have been navigating more than two hundred different fees across England and Wales, receiving differing amounts in some areas for working on similar cases.
The rise will also ensure fees differentiate between case complexity, so a lawyer spending 30 minutes on a shoplifting case and five hours on a murder trial would receive appropriate compensation for each.
Alex Chalk, lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice, said: “Solicitors working in police stations play a critical role in ensuring access to justice by giving people legal advice, often at antisocial hours and at a moment’s notice. It is right that they receive a substantial pay increase to reflect the importance and complexity of their work.
“This longer-term investment will also help ensure solicitors are paid more fairly in the youth court with the enhanced fee helping to recruit and retain solicitors who do essential work to uphold the fairness of our justice system.”