Legal aid body's accounts qualified

27 Oct 11
The body responsible for legal aid has had its accounts qualified for overpayments of more than £50m.

By Mark Smulian  | 27 October 2011

The body responsible for legal aid has had its accounts qualified for overpayments of more than £50m.

Auditors found that the Legal Services Commission spent £29.5m on cases where legal aid providers over-claimed for the work done and £21.2m on cases where claimants’ eligibility for aid could not be demonstrated.

Reporting on the 2010/11accounts, published today, comptroller and auditor general Amyas Morse noted that overpayments had fallen by 34% over the previous year, when £76.5m of mis-payments were recorded.

He said: ‘While the Legal Services Commission has made considerable progress, it still faces difficulties in reducing the level of error in payments to legal services providers.

‘The commission also needs to make significant improvements to the quality of the data supporting the reported balance of outstanding debt.’

It would ‘need to make difficult decisions on the costs and benefits of further work to improve in these areas’, Morse added.

LSC chair Sir Bill Callaghan welcomed the 34% fall in overpayments and said: ‘We are very grateful to legal aid practitioners who have worked with us to achieve such a significant reduction.’

He said the £50.7m overspend was equivalent to 2% of total spending, adding: ‘The LSC will continue to concentrate on strengthening its financial management through its internal financial stewardship programme.’

The LSC is responsible for the provision of legal aid in England and Wales through the Community Legal Service Fund (for civil cases) and the Criminal Defence Service (for criminal cases).

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