Legal Aid (Hansard, 10 March 1989)

§ The Attorney-General

The net cost to public funds in 1987–88 of legal aid in civil cases was £178.0 million, and in criminal cases was £249.2 million. That is the last year for which figures are available. A breakdown of these figures is shown in the following table:

	Gross expenditure	Receipts¹	Net expenditure
	£ million	£ million	£ million
Civil cases
Civil legal aid	206.1	88.9	117.1
Advice and assistance	50.7	3.3	47.3

24W

	Gross expenditure	Receipts¹	Net expenditure
	£ million	£ million	£ million
ABWOR	13.8	0.3	13.5
Total	270.5	92.6	178.0
Criminal cases
In magistrates' courts²	114.0	1.8	112.3
In the higher courts	100.1	0.7	99.4
Duty solicitor schemes	28.0	—	28.0
Advice and assistance	9.8	0.2	9.5
Total	251.9	2.7	249.2
¹ The receipts consist of moneys recovered by the Legal Aid Administration of the Law Society in respect of contributions from assisted parties, and costs and damages awarded in civil cases on which the Legal Aid Fund has a first charge.
² These figures include payments and receipts in respect of legal aid in care proceedings which cannot be separately identified.

In addition the administrative cost of the Legal Aid Service in 1987–88 was approximately £37.5 million. This was made up of £25.5 million for the legal aid administration of the Law Society, £3.5 million for the DHSS assessment office, £0.6 million for the headquarters of the Lord Chancellor's Department, and approximately £5.4 million in the Crown and county courts and £2.5 million in the magistrates' courts.