LASPO Act Analysis

This essay analyzes the LASPO Act 2012, examining its provisions, impact on access to justice, and the need for reform. It explores alternative models like McKenzie Friends and Public Defender Schemes to address the limitations of LASPO.

LAW AND SOCIETY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
CURRENT LAW:............................................................................................................................3
ANALYSIS OF CURRENT LAW..................................................................................................4
ANALYSIS OF NEED FOR REFORM..........................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offences (LASPO) Act, 2012 is a statute act of
the Parliament of the United Kingdom for creating reforms to the justice system of the country.
The act provides the provisions for legal funding i.e. provisions regarding costs and other
amounts involved in legal proceedings such as referral fees. The law has stated provisions related
to sentencing of the offenders along with the nature of punishment to such offenders.
The bill was presented in the House of Commons on 21 June 2011 and the Royal Assent
was obtained on 1 May 2012. Reforms are done for making the legislation and legal system
altogether more effective for the citizen of the country. Law reforms is the systematic process of
amending and updating the existing laws for reflecting the current value and needs of the society.
Changing values of the society is one of the major reason for law reforms because an outdated
law that is meant to provide protection and justice to people becomes ineffective for serving the
interest of public
1.
The reforms in the UK legal system was required for the purpose of making the
legislation more impactful and easily accessible to the people by which disputes in the country
could be resolved with more effectiveness.
CURRENT LAW:
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of offences (LASPO) Act is the act of British
Parliament that was enacted on 1 May 2012 after receiving the Royal Assent. The act deals with
the provisions related to legal aid, terms for sentence for the offenders and nature of punishment
for them . The act has laid down various measures among others that are mentioned below:
 The act provides more discretion for issuing conditional discharges for young people who
are guilty to a first offense.
 The act has laid down new offences for the subject matter called “Squatting”. Squatting
refers to the unauthorised entrance into other's residential property and living in it. It has
set limits for punishment in case of residential squatting that are imprisonment of not
more than 51 weeks and fine not more than 5 level of standard limit (£) 5000.
1 Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of offences (LASPO) Act , 2012

 It has amended provisions in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 that provides
police freedom of searching the building, if they suspect someone of committing
squatting.
 This act has modified and updated the Crime (Sentence) Act 1997 in which it allows
Secretary of State to acquit foreign nationals that are serving unidentified prison
sentences in the case they have served minimum term of sentence.
 It has set the sentence term for murders that are caused by hate against disabled and
transgender to 30 years.
 It has removed all provisions relating to financial aid for many private family cases.
Exception: cases of domestic violence and abuse.
 The act has abolished Legal Service Commission and has replaced it with Legal Aid
Agency. It is the new executive agency in the UK's legal system.
 The new reform in the legal system has also taken away the financial support from
maximum cases involving welfare, employment, debt, immigration, housing and medical
negligence.
ANALYSIS OF CURRENT LAW
The enactment of LASPO has impacted the legal services and citizens of the country
greatly. The law was introduced to make the legal system more effective. The law had an
objective of reforming the legal aid provisions in the country and modifications in the criminal
legal aid.
Positive impact of LASPO:
 Reduction in the legal provided to the people in their family cases, housing, welfare,
employment etc. has been done for taking away the burden of financial resources for
funding these cases from the government. Government derives its resources in the form
of taxes from the public only and by creating such provisions, it has lessened the burden
on tax payers in some way. This can be seen by figures that reflects the fell in the legal
aid expenditure. The legal aid expenditure reduced by (£)950 million about 38% in the
year 2016-2017 when comparing it with the year 2012-2013.2
2 Legal aid and the post implementation review, 2018. [Online]. Available through
<file:///home/user/Downloads/CDP-2018-0193.pdf>

 The act still provides legal aid in the cases such as domestic abuse, social service that
involves child, when the aid is required by a person under the age of 18 years, domestic
and international child abduction. These cases qualify for the legal aid because of the
seriousness of the subject matters.
 The reduction in the legal aid has led to great savings for the government. These savings
could be used by it in more important projects of national importance. 3
Negative impacts of LASPO :
 Cut in the financial aid has to the conditions where people cannot afford the services of
barristers and solicitors for representing them in the court. This has negatively impacted
the lives of the citizens of UK.
 The new measures and provisions introduced by this act has led to the reduction in the
legal service providers. The number of companies and firms providing legal aid has
decreased by an average of 20% in England (The effects of LASPO on civil legal aid in
Wales, 2018).
 The LASPO act has limited the access to justice mainly because of its measures of
withdrawing legal aid from family law cases and others subject matters of national
importance.
 The law society of the UK debated over the issue of “advice deserts” in the housing law
that shows this limited access to justice is creating problems such as :
Low income group people would not be able to travel and acquire the services of
provider;
Only few firms are operating for providing legal services and legal aid in England after
the introduction of LASPO, therefore, one firm cannot meet the demand of large area;
 The act has created disturbance in the legal system of the country.
ANALYSIS OF NEED FOR REFORM
The general definition of reform is any amendment or modifications in the existing law
for improving it and making it more effective. The LASPO act was introduced as reform act that
3 Fenn, Paul, and Neil Rickman. "The Impact of Legislation on the Outcomes of Civil
Litigation: An Empirical Analysis of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of
Offenders Act 2012." Available at SSRN 3326665 (2019).

modified provisions and measures related to legal aid, sentencing of offenders and nature and
limit of punishments provided to such offenders. But during the span of 5-6 years, the legal
experts are debating over its negative impacts on the lives of the citizens as how the measures of
this act has limited the access to justice for the people of nation4.
Suggested reforms:
 Making reasonable legal aid available to the public for solving their family disputes so
that they can afford the services of barristers and solicitors who can represent them before
the court.
 The measures of the act that has narrowed down the scope of legal scope of welfare
benefits, debt, housing, employment must be extended to a specific limit. This would
help in promoting an environment where citizens of the nation have equal power of
accessing the legal services for resolving their disputes 5.
 The provisions of LASPO of providing funding to exceptional cases has not fully met the
expectations. The ministry have to make its fund granting system more efficient and
effective by which people do not find any convenience in their legal matters.
This is because from a report of Equality and Human Rights Commission, only 70 %
of the grants were successful in the year the act was introduced. However, in the year 2017-
2018 , the numbers improved but are still under the predictions set by the ministry. These facts
are showing that the mechanism is not as efficient as it was expected .
 Reforming the existing exceptional cases so that people qualifying for the criteria does
not undue advantage of the law. It should be reform in such a way absence of legal aid do
not violate the basic human rights of people regarding accessing to justice.
 Proper funding machinery for providing legal aid and financial aid to urgent applications
by reviewing the barriers in the application process along with the fund granting process. Opening up of more legal service providers for meeting the demand of large area.
Advantages of making reforms:
4 Trinder, Liz, and Rosemary Hunter. "Access to justice? Litigants in person before and after
LASPO." (2015).
5 Barlow, Anne. "Rising to the post-LASPO challenge: How should mediation
respond?." Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 39, no. 2 (2017): 203-222.

The above said reforms would the LASPO mechanism more effective. Broadening the
scope of legal aid and financial support to the various kinds of cases would remove the limit put
by act in the access of justice for the public. Creation of flexible measures for legal service
providers would result in the opening up of more firms . This will lead to better coverage of the
region in terms of dealing with legal disputes in the country. Making functioning of fund
granting in exceptional cases would help in easy and quick decision making in the urgent
applications6.
Disadvantages of these reforms:
Extending the limit of legal aid funding would increase the burden of administration cost
significantly on the government of UK. This ultimately would be transferred on the taxpayers of
the country.
Different Models:
McKenzie Friends:
McKenzie friends can be referred to as those persons who accompanies a litigant in
person when a person cannot afford the services of barristers or solicitors due to the withdrawal
of legal aid funding by LASPO provisions. These people helps the litigant in person to take
notes, sits with the person in court, advices the person and provides the best support. McKenzie
friends helps people in resolving family disputes. They however, cannot act on the behalf of the
litigant like solicitors or barristers.7
This model could be used by the people in UK for coping up with the limit imposed by
the government through LASPO Act. This way they could conveniently access the judiciary and
justice in the nation.
Public Defender Scheme:
In this scheme, an attorney is appointed by the state for representing people who cannot
afford to hire court professionals. Such scheme in the United Kingdom provides the facility that
6 The effects of LASPO on civil legal aid in Wales. 2018. [Online]. Available through
<https://publiclawproject.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/LASPOA_briefing_Wales.p
df>
7 McKenzie Friends - What are they. 2018. [Online]. Available through
<https://www.mckenzie-friend.org.uk/>

each person has the right to be heard in court trough a professional person representing him8.
This scheme supports the human rights and fundamental rights of the citizens of nation. The
public defender scheme can mitigate the gap created by the existing LASPO Act that has
restricted people in approaching professional legal aid .
Crowd Funding Websites:
This is a new mechanism of arranging funds through which people can obtain funds for
taking up of the legal issue in the court. The issue is posted on the website and people are
requested to contribute towards the cause. Low income group of country can utilise this method
for solving their disputes in the court by arranging funds from public.
Remark:
So by looking at these alternatives, the necessity of extending the limit of legal aid and
financial funding for affording the legal services could be ruled out. People can easily approach
these methods through their family and children disputes could be resolved by using McKenzie
friends or public defender for representing them in court.
However, the business of the legal service providers in the country has significantly
affected for which necessary reforms are to made for balancing out the service sector in the
United Kingdom.
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it can be summarised that LASPO was introduced for the purpose
of improving the previous provisions related to legal aid, sentencing and punishment to
offenders. The objective was to reduce the administrative cost of government which fell also by
significant numbers and saved government (£)500 million. However, the functioning of this act
was not as efficient as it was intended. The grants provided to exceptional cases were below the
standards. Withdrawal of the legal aid and financial support to the family cases, debts, welfare
benefits etc., impacted negatively on the lives of people. People now can not afford the
expensive services of barristers and solicitors for representing them in courts. The study
however, concluded the methods such as McKenzie Friends, Public Defenders Scheme and
Crowd Funding websites could be used by the nationals for approaching the legal services in the
8 Maclean, Mavis. "Access to Family Justice: England and Wales." In Family Law in Britain
and America in the New Century, pp. 203-216. Brill Nijhoff, 2016.

country and accessing the justice. This in a way, reduces the probability of making reforms in the
existing law of LASPO in the United Kingdom.

REFERENCES
<https://publiclawproject.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/LASPOA_briefing_Wales.pdf>
<https://www.mckenzie-friend.org.uk/>
<file:///home/user/Downloads/CDP-2018-0193.pdf>
file:///home/user/Downloads/CDP-2018-0230.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/
file/655971/LASPO-Act-2012-post-legislative-memorandum.pdf