Proposed cuts could affect employment legal aid

The legal aid system is facing a shake-up as the government outlines proposals to make cuts across employment legal aid and other sectors.

According to Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, the legal aid system in the UK is one of the most expensive in the world, costing over £2 billion each year.

Now, a consultation has been launched into government proposals to cut legal aid costs by as much as £350 million a year.

Clarke said, “It can't be right that the taxpayer is footing the bill for unnecessary court cases which would never have even reached the court room door were it not for the fact that someone else was paying.”

Employment legal aid is just one sector which may face cuts, alongside divorce, debt, clinical negligence and personal injury.

The consultation stated, “We recognise that recipients value advice on employment matters, but because these cases are generally concerned with monetary damages or earning potential, given the need to reduce legal aid expenditure, we do not consider that they are sufficiently important to merit support from legal aid.”

Currently, although legal aid is available in England and Wales for advice on workplace issues and potentially for certain employment tribunal claims, in practice very few claims are brought with the benefit of legal aid. Commenting on the proposals, Senior Employment Litigator at Mentor, Alan Philp, commented: “Almost none of the claims we defend on behalf of our clients are supported by legal aid at the moment so the proposed cutting of legal aid for employment claims is going to have a very negligible impact. In practice, the recession will have a greater impact on the number of claims being brought. This is because dismissed employees can’t find other work and so are more likely to pursue claims. Since the employment tribunal process itself is free of charge, there is nothing to prevent them from doing so”.