Family lawyers’ group Resolution has hit out at the Legal Aid Agency’s (LAA) Client Cost and Management System (CCMS).
Jo Edwards, chairman of Resolution, told delegates at Resolution’s conference in Brighton this week: “At the last count, the LAA had spent over £35m on this ill-fated project. When set against the scale of the legal aid cuts...and the huge number of vulnerable people now deprived of access to justice who could benefit from some of this budget being used to fund initial legal advice, this is nothing short of a national scandal.” CCMS allows practitioners to digitally submit civil legal aid applications, and will be mandatory for practitioners from October.