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Researching reform: LASPO, legal aid and access to justice for children
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The Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) received Royal Assent on 1 May 2012. It focused mainly on reformation of the family justice system in the areas of youth crime rehabilitation and financial support for certain types of cases.
The Act has in the last few months become infamous largely due to the effects of the latter reforms. Indeed there has been noticeable disquiet inside the legal sector as the provisions contained in the Act start to take hold and impact upon practice. By and large that impact has not offered much comfort for legal practitioners nor for families going through the courts. And the extent of that disquiet is now slowly starting to come to the surface.
A recent
Bar Council survey found that 80% of respondents who worked in the family courts saw an increase in court delays since LASPO’s inception. Furthermore 88% of respondents taking part in the survey also reported an...
Read the full article here.
