Why am I not surprised?

The Quango which runs the Legal Aid system is wasting millions on unnecessary administration and overpaying lawyers, the National Audit Office has found.

And “suggested” that the Legal Services Commission should cut back on its administration budget, and questioned why it was overpaying lawyers with millions of pounds in fees.

The NAO warned that there were “risks to value for money from the way the Legal Services Commission administers and procures legal aid for criminal cases”.

The report found that the commission "should do more to understand the market for criminal legal aid to make the most of its ability to control price and quality".

Last year, it found the Quango overpaid solicitors on criminal and civil legal aid cases by an estimated £25 million. In the same year it spent £1.1billion on criminal legal aid.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, added: “The Commission needs to address this as a priority to make sure that it is paying a fair price for legal aid services that both sustains a competitive supplier base and provides value for money.”

A survey of solicitors by the NAO found that more than a third thought the Commission was “unhelpful” while 29 per cent of solicitors believed the Commission “did not fully understand the legal system”.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow Justice Secretary, said: “This is a savage indictment of this government’s mismanagement of the legal aid budget.

"Criminal legal aid cost over £1billion last year, but the taxpayer is getting poor value for money. The government doesn’t understand the market for legal services and consistently fails to spend money effectively.”

Lord Bach, the Legal Aid minister, said he was disappointed that "control systems" at the commission had "led to a substantial number of overpayments.

"I have therefore asked the Commission to put in place an action plan to recover these amounts and to impose tighter controls to ensure claims are more effectively scrutinised to prevent repetition."

Last night the Government ordered the Commission to reclaim the overpaid fees, which amounted to £25million last year.


No recession for legal aid lawyers then, at our expense of course.

Angus

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