Criminal areas of work

On this page:

Police stations
Magistrates’ court
Crown Court
Very high cost cases
Prisons
Working within the Criminal Justice System
Frequently asked questions

Police stations

From 14 Jan 08 all requests for publicly funded representation at police stations must be routed via the Defence Solicitor Call Centre.

Magistrates’ court

Means testing is in place in the magistrates court.

Crown Court

We propose to revise the way we pay for legal aid work in the Crown Court.

This involves introducing new fee schemes.

Very high cost cases

We have created a panel of specialist providers for these cases. Panel membership was determined by competitive tender.

Prisons

We are working with the National Offender Management Service and Her Majesty's Prison Service to improve the efficiency of prison visits for defence practitioners.

We're also looking at improving quality and value for money in the area of prison law.

Working within the Criminal Justice System

Our Criminal Justice System Initiatives team ensures that we work effectively with the Ministry of Justice and our criminal justice system (CJS) partners at a national and local level.

We are working to:

ensure efficiency across the whole criminal justice system
improve value for money for spending on criminal legal aid
build confidence in the criminal justice system.

Frequently asked questions

We have produced a document (available on the right hand panel) which contains a list of frequently asked questions that we get with regard to criminal areas of work. The document covers questions relating to all criminal areas including:

Advice and Assistance
Police Station Queries
Advocacy Assistance

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Last updated: 12 November 2009