Wilding: Much need is unmet
Lawyers doing legally aided community care work are turning away clients and ‘hyper-specialising’ in Court of Protection (CoP) matters in a bid to make ends meet, according to research.
There is “no longer any meaningful regional picture, nor any meaningful local provision” of community care legal aid.
“Almost all of the provider interviewees specialised in one or two elements of community care law, with very few taking on a broader range of work types, with the exception of some of the law centres, which focus on their geographical community,” reported Dr Jo Wilding, associate law professor at Sussex University.
“Some specialise in children’s social care and do not take on adult cases, while others taken on almost exclusively adults’ cases.
“One of the largest firms by [pre-court] Legal Help matter completions undertakes almost exclusively age assessment cases for unaccompanied children, while another of the larger firms focuses heavily on asylum support matters, both of which would either be conceded relatively quickly or would move quite promptly onto a civil representation certificate.
“All of them aimed to take on as few cases as possible which were likely to remain on Legal Help, and to select only those likely to move onto civil representation.”
Dr Wilding, an associate tenant at Garden Court Chambers, found that the largest trend was towards CoP as the exclusive sub-type of practice.
Most lawyers she interviewed “felt that this was not necessarily a conscious decision or strategy, but rather one which evolved under the pressure of each individual lawyer’s own fee target”.
Legal Help work was “particularly unaffordable” and there had been a “serious decline”, from 8,500 cases started in 2009-10 to 1,600 in 2024-25.
Despite an overall increase in civil representation cases, which involve representation at court, 89% of these related to CoP matters, which increased from 37 cases in 2014-15 to over 2,000 in 2024-25.
Civil representation judicial review cases nearly halved, from 474 in 2018-19 to 240 in 2024-25.
“These are not alternative ways of progressing the same case, so the data clearly shows a significant loss of access across most elements of community care law.”
The solicitors she spoke to highlighted how there was huge eligible demand but they could only afford to take on a small percentage.
This meant that many had adopted a “survival strategy of hyper-specialising in particular sub-categories of community care work, leaving very little provision for the least financially viable sub-categories”.
The report, Community Care Legal Aid in England and Wales: Urgent help needed [1], was based on a study of available data and interviews with 10 solicitors or practice managers, three barristers and four legal aid users.
“The vast majority of Legal Help provision is in London and the East Midlands, though the combination of overall shortages and the hyper-specialisation that providers have deployed as a survival strategy means there is no longer any meaningful regional picture, nor any meaningful local provision.”
The data showed that 29% of offices with community care legal aid contracts did not complete a single matter in 2025-26, while a quarter of contracted organisations did not complete any cases from any of their offices, a higher proportion than for housing or immigration legal aid.
Meanwhile recruitment of qualified community care practitioners was “very difficult throughout England and Wales, especially outside London”, and some providers “found it impossible to recruit a supervisor”.
Dr Wilding said it was “overwhelmingly likely” that a large volume of community care legal aid need was unmet in England and Wales, leaving “some of the most vulnerable people in the country unable to uphold or enforce their legal rights”.
The evidence also “strongly suggests” that the Lord Chancellor was failing to fulfil the duty in section 1 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act to secure the availability of legal aid.
The academic took issue with a ‘deep dive’ into community care legal aid, carried out by the Ministry of Justice as part of its Review of Civil Legal Aid in 2025, which concluded that there were no significant problems.
She recommended that fees for community care legal aid work should increase “significantly”. Unless the government was willing to abandon fixed fees, the escape threshold needed to be reduced.
There was also “an urgent need to reduce legal aid bureaucracy and the time spent on tasks for which providers are not paid”.
Asked in Parliament about the need to increase the number of community care lawyers in the light of Dr Wilding’s report, justice minster Lord Lemos said this month: “The government recognises the pressures facing civil legal aid and is investing in the sector.
“We have secured additional funding of over £200m over the spending review period for legal aid transformation, recovery from the cyber-attack, and for moving our legacy systems to a modern and secure technology platform.
“The transformation programme aims to support sustainability for all providers – including those undertaking community care legal aid work – by ensuring new digital systems streamline processes and reduce administrative burdens.”