Guernsey’s Legal Aid Service underspent its £2.95million budget by £680,000 last year – leading to a reduced budget of £2m for 2025.
The service’s annual report details a decrease in civil applications and an increase in criminal applications, alongside a rise in hourly rates for advocates and the removal of full legal aid funding for divorce proceedings.
The 2024 report also notes the service is fully staffed and is managing a debtors’ balance of over half a million.
Financial Performance and Budget
The report’s lead finding is the service’s significant financial performance in 2024, with total expenditure of £2.279m, £680,000 under the original budget of £2.95m.
Last year’s underspend seems to be a continued pattern from previous years, and has led to a reduction in the 2025 budget, down to £2m.
The overall reduction for next year’s budget will be 32.2% of the service’s funding.
In 2020, there was a £449,000 underspend against a budget of £2,832,000, with the following year seeing an underspend of £847k.
In 2022, there was a £643k underspend against a budget of £2.88m, and an underspend of £667k, against the budget of £2.897m, for 2023.
These expenditures were primarily split between civil and criminal matters.
‘Civil Matters’ accounted for £1.297m of the expenditure, 68.8% of the overall cost of legal cases, whilst ‘Criminal Matters’ cost £587,000, or 31.2%.
An additional £395,000 was spent on administration costs.
Case numbers and Service Changes
Civil applications saw a decrease, with 284 processed in 2024, down from 323 in 2023.
In contrast, criminal applications increased to 145 in 2024, up from 133 in 2023.
The report also notes other types of assistance, such as Green Forms, which provide up to two hours of legal advice – 409 Green Form matters in 2024.
The report also highlights several key changes that have taken effect or will soon do so, including Advocate Rates, Divorce Law changes, and alterations to Governance.
Firstly, the hourly rate for Advocates undertaking legal aid work was increased in February this year, up to £174.50, following a recommendation from a prior independent review.
That increase also applied to Non-Admitted Lawyers and Paralegals.
Meanwhile, a new law came into effect on 19 July 2024 that removed full legal aid funding for divorce proceedings from the Civil Legal Aid Scheme.
The report also noted the appointment of a new Deputy Legal Aid Commissioner, Advocate Jason Hill, and the impending departure of the long-serving Legal Aid Administrator, Lucy Haywood.
Debtors’ Balances
The report provides a brief snapshot of the money owed back to the service by clients.
The total value of civil and criminal debtors as of the end of 2024 was £570k, with some of the oldest outstanding debts dating back to 2007.
Across the Bailiwick
The report’s main expenditure figures for criminal and civil cases are based on Guernsey, but it does still make note of the civil expenditure for both Alderney and Sark is “minimal”.
The net value of legal aid debtors as of the end of 2024 shows a significant difference in outstanding debt, with Guernsey having £208k in civil debt and £307k in criminal debt.
Alderney meanwhile had £3k in civil debt and £2k in criminal debt, and Sark had £49k in civil debt and £1k in criminal debt.
For those costs, Guernsey processed 284 civil and 145 criminal applications, Alderney had four civil cases and three criminal cases, and Sark had no civil cases and two criminal cases approved in 2024.
