There are solutions to the legal aid crisis

Legal aid was introduced in the dark days of post-war austerity with public support. The Rushcliffe Committee was published as the precursor to the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 and it made clear that advocates who were funded to represent defendants via legal aid should receive adequate remuneration because the adversarial 'system of trial depends entirely on both sides being adequately equipped to present their cases'. Our version of austerity has been mild in comparison and yet cross-party political support for legal aid has been lacking.

However, although polls have found 84 per cent of people say legal aid and a fair trial are a fundamental right and 89 per cent say its availability is important, legal aid and welfare have been conflated in the minds of some (due to adverse press and fuelled by some irresponsible politicians).

Legal aid is not a welfare benefit. It is a legal right. If ever-more complex laws are enacted and the government funds prosecutions, a balance must be struck for people to negotiate those complexities by obtaining specialist legal representation.

Legal aid is not a charity: the tax payer would support recoupment of some of their money in criminal cases by the convicted taking responsibility and paying back a modest portion of the legal aid obtained, now the iniquitous court charge has been removed.

In addition, the assaults upon civil legal aid are proving increasingly counter-productive and costly, with unrepresented litigants clogging up the courts to the concern of the judiciary. Attempts by the former, unlamented Lord Chancellor to make unsustainable cuts to criminal legal aid nearly resulted in a meltdown of the system, which Michael Gove has shrewdly managed to avert. That assault was contrary to Lord Leveson's Review,which made clear that 'part of the solution to improving the efficiency of the whole system is to acknowledge the critical role that the defence can play'. That refers to early engagement mainly by legal aid lawyers.

Public expenditure on legal aid has fallen, as Gove accepted when abandoning Chris Grayling's proposals. The public are nonetheless entitled to see their taxes spent wisely. A start can be made by looking at the whole delivery system of legal aid services and its expensive bureaucratic infrastructure, which needs a complete overhaul. We need to change the way the government provides legal services, so it evolves into being an enabler with a limited one-stop payment or audit role. The profession also needs one-stop regulation instead of the expensive multi-agency duplication we have now.

The profession will engage with the government to reduce the huge bureaucratic cost of administering legal aid and over-regulation so that the government does not feel the need to reduce its scope or rates paid to hard-pressed legal aid lawyers.

Author's note: The Criminal Law Solicitors' Association is working on some of these ideas in detail

Robin Murray is senior partner of Robin Murray & Co, Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year 2015, and former vice chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association @robinthemint www.clsa.co.uk