A new report of a survey of members of the Association of Prison Lawyers (APL),1The APL issued the survey in June 2023 and 98 responses were received. published in August 2023, shows that 74 per cent of respondents do not anticipate being prison law legal aid lawyers in three years’ time. The number of prison law legal aid providers has already decreased by 85 per cent since 2008. The report concludes that a ‘toxic combination of emotionally exhausting, complex and poorly paid work means that prison law legal aid work is no longer sustainable’.

The workload in prison law legal aid has increased in volume, stress and complexity. There is a significant and growing backlog in parole cases, caused in part by significant changes designed to toughen and open up the system. These changes have been at the heart of the government’s reform agenda and have made parole work more difficult and complex.

Almost all respondents (98 per cent) felt that the complexity of Parole Board work has increased significantly in the past five years. This has involved navigating two new mechanisms that can enable the reopening of parole decisions: the reconsideration mechanism (introduced in 2019) and the set-aside process (introduced in 2022). In the words of one respondent: ‘It has become so much more complex – in terms of the volume of information to consider in the dossier … complex guidance ... and complicated procedures.’

While the work has become more difficult, legal aid pay for prison law has fallen by 35 per cent in real terms since 2011. Lord Bellamy’s proposal of a 15 per cent increase for prison law work as part of his Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid was rejected by the government. The only reason given was that the government wants to prioritise the backlog in criminal matters.

Rikki Garg, APL chairman, said: ‘This rate of attrition cannot go on. New lawyers are not coming into an area of social justice when it is needed most. Unless something can be done to address this decline now there is no future in this area of practice.’

Law Society president Lubna Shuja welcomed the report and suggested that the recommended 15 per cent increase in the legal aid rate for prison law work would be a ‘starting point’ for the government.