Legal Aid

HC Deb 06 November 1992 vol 213 cc419-21W

Mr. Llwyd

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will make it his policy to grant the right to free legal advice to all patients detained in psychiatric hospitals.

Mr. John M. Taylor

No. It is the Government's general policy that those who are assessed as having the means to contribute towards the cost of legal advice provided under the legal aid scheme should do so.

Mr. Vaz

To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what was the average time between legal aid work being done by barristers and legal aid fees being paid to them for (a) criminal and (b) civil legal aid for each of the past 20 years.

Mr. John D. Taylor

Figures are not available in the form nor for the period requested. The information immediately available is contained in the tables. It shows performance against target for bills paid by the Legal Aid Board and the Crown court. It is only available in respect of the time taken to pay bills once they have been submitted.

Payments made by the Legal Aid Board
1991–92 Civil bills: Taxed and assessed Time taken	March 1992 Target Per cent.	March 1992 Performance Per cent.
6 weeks	65	78
8 weeks	85	88
Bills in Magistrates' Courts' proceedings
6 weeks	80	89
Other bills
6 weeks	95	95

1990–91 Civil bills: taxed and assessed time taken	March 1990 performance Per cent.	March 1991 performance Per cent.	March 1992 performance Per cent.
4 weeks	38	31
6 weeks	68	71	85
8 weeks	81	88	85
Bills in Magistrates' Courts' proceedings
4 weeks	78	76	—
6 weeks	93	91	80

1990–91 Other bills Time taken	March 1991 performance Per cent.	March 1992 target Per cent.
4 weeks	82	—
6 weeks	95	95
1989–90 time taken to process bills
4 weeks	82	76
6 weeks	95	91

Payments made by the Crown court

In the Crown court, where counsel has claimed a standard fee the target is for payment within five working days where the claim is lodged on the day that the case is concluded; and within 10 working days where it is not. The table gives the percentage of cases paid within target and the average number of days taken to pay all standard fees.

	1989–90	1990–91	1991–92
Performance	60 per cent.	68 per cent.	72 per cent.
Average time (days) between date of receipt and payment of claim	10	11	9

For non-standard fee cases in the Crown court there is a target of no more than 30 per cent. of claims to be outstanding after four weeks from date of receipt.

	1987–88 Per cent.	1988–89 Per cent.	1989–90 Per cent.	1990–91 Per cent.	1991–92 Per cent.
Percentage of claims from counsel outstanding more than four weeks from receipt	33	32	37	38	28

Figures for the speed of payment of Crown court claims by the central taxing teams—which were established in March 1991—are produced on a monthly basis. The target is for payment of 75 per cent. of the claims within three months of the claim becoming ready to tax and for no claims to remain untaxed after six months. In terms of their own workload, all teams, except the south-eastern, are currently meeting the first of these targets, and all but the south-eastern and midland and Oxford are meeting the second.