Family Law

The MOJ has published its first report on exceptional case funding.

This statistical release provides information and data on Legal Aid Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) applications and determinations made under clause 10 of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) from 1 April 2013.

The report covers all applications and determinations from 1 April to 31 December 2013. The key points are:

Applications

• 1,151 total ECF applications were received by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA). Of these:

- 909 were new applications and
- 242 were requests to review an earlier determination (see Figures 1 and 2);

• Of the total ECF applications, family and immigration were the most requested categories of law. There were 617 applications in the family category and 187 applications in the immigration category (see Table 1);

• 62 ECF applications were made directly by the client, without solicitors formally submitting applications on their behalf. ECF applications are the only legal aid applications that can be submitted directly by a client. The remaining 1,089 applications were made by Legal Aid providers.

Determinations

• 1,083 ECF applications were determined by the LAA with a further 68 awaiting to be assessed as at 31 December (see Table 1);

• There were 35 ECF applications granted (see Figure 3).

This ad hoc release has been provided due to ongoing requests for quantitative information on ECF. Future updates of information within this document will be incorporated in the annual statistical bulletin ‘Legal Aid Statistics', to be published in June 2014.

The full report is available to download here.