Survey on MoJ Proposals to Increase Legal Aid Fees |
Introduction
This survey is for those with an interest in current legal aid rates in immigration and asylum, and housing and debt categories as well as other areas of legal aid work.
Your answers will be shared with and confidentially retained by the following representative bodies: Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA), Immigration Practitioners’ Group Northern Ireland (IPG), Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG), Housing Law Practitioners Association (HLPA) and Law Centres Network (LCN) to contribute to submissions to relevant Consultations, particularly the MoJ's current consultation which closes on 21 March 2025.
The survey will close at 5pm on Friday 14 March.
The platform estimates it will take 30 minutes to complete this survey, if you have the information to hand.
Please only complete this survey if you are based in England and Wales or Northern Ireland. We are inviting one submission per organisation.
The consultation sets out specific proposals for increasing and harmonising fees, as well as asking for views on changing the contractual requirements in relation to remote work and provider offices. As well as providers who undertake work in immigration, asylum, housing and debt, we are also encouraging providers who do not do housing and immigration work to consider what similar increases might mean for their area(s) of work, should the MoJ use the same rationale as set out in this current consultation.
Before taking this survey, you might want to think about the potential impact of the proposed fee increases on your income and business model. In order to get a better idea of what these increases will mean in practice, you could consider doing one of the following exercises before you start the survey in order to calculate the potential change in your fee income:
1. Take a sample of the cases (perhaps what you consider to be ‘typical’ cases across your areas of work) and mechanically apply the new rates (set out in Annex B of the consultation document) to your billing records to see what additional income you would recover for each case. This would include profit costs and any percentage increases you obtained via enhancements. Then extrapolate this over your entire caseload to get a best estimate of your likely income for a specific period of time (say the last 12 months), or
2. Use the ballpark increase figures that the MOJ uses and apply these to your current income levels. In the Impact Assessment to the consultation the MOJ estimates that overall Housing spend will increase by 42% for Controlled Work and 10% for Licensed Work and that Immigration spend will increase by 32% for Controlled Work and 10% for Licensed Work.
Thank you for taking the time to complete our survey.
Your answers will be shared with and confidentially retained by the following representative bodies: Immigration Law Practitioners' Association (ILPA), Immigration Practitioners’ Group Northern Ireland (IPG), Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG), Housing Law Practitioners Association (HLPA) and Law Centres Network (LCN) to contribute to submissions to relevant Consultations, particularly the MoJ's current consultation which closes on 21 March 2025.
The survey will close at 5pm on Friday 14 March.
The platform estimates it will take 30 minutes to complete this survey, if you have the information to hand.
Please only complete this survey if you are based in England and Wales or Northern Ireland. We are inviting one submission per organisation.
The consultation sets out specific proposals for increasing and harmonising fees, as well as asking for views on changing the contractual requirements in relation to remote work and provider offices. As well as providers who undertake work in immigration, asylum, housing and debt, we are also encouraging providers who do not do housing and immigration work to consider what similar increases might mean for their area(s) of work, should the MoJ use the same rationale as set out in this current consultation.
Before taking this survey, you might want to think about the potential impact of the proposed fee increases on your income and business model. In order to get a better idea of what these increases will mean in practice, you could consider doing one of the following exercises before you start the survey in order to calculate the potential change in your fee income:
1. Take a sample of the cases (perhaps what you consider to be ‘typical’ cases across your areas of work) and mechanically apply the new rates (set out in Annex B of the consultation document) to your billing records to see what additional income you would recover for each case. This would include profit costs and any percentage increases you obtained via enhancements. Then extrapolate this over your entire caseload to get a best estimate of your likely income for a specific period of time (say the last 12 months), or
2. Use the ballpark increase figures that the MOJ uses and apply these to your current income levels. In the Impact Assessment to the consultation the MOJ estimates that overall Housing spend will increase by 42% for Controlled Work and 10% for Licensed Work and that Immigration spend will increase by 32% for Controlled Work and 10% for Licensed Work.
Thank you for taking the time to complete our survey.