Legal Aid: Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Jim Cousins
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many applications there have been for (a) civil and (b) criminal legal aid from residents of Newcastle upon Tyne in the last five years.

Bridget Prentice
Applications for civil legal aid help and advice are made to individual providers. Existing data collection arrangements record the number of instances of advice provided, rather than the number of applications made.

Applications for civil legal aid representation are made to the Legal Services Commission (LSC). The LSC collects data on the number of applications submitted to providers located within the local authority area for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and this is broken down for each of the past five financial years in table 1 as follows. A proportion of these applications will come from individuals resident outside Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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|FY     |Number|
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|2004-05|1,560 |
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|2005-06|1,580 |
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|2006-07|1,660 |
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|2007-08|1,600 |
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|2008-09|1,740 |
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Applications for criminal legal aid cannot be identified on the basis of postcode information so it is not possible to provide details of applications submitted from residents in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. However, the LSC can identify the numbers of legal aid applications submitted to Newcastle-upon-Tyne magistrates court since means testing was introduced in October 2006, and these are set out in table 2. These applications include those submitted from defendants charged with an indictable only offence and facing trial before Newcastle-upon-Tyne Crown court. Some of these applications will have been submitted on behalf of individuals who do not reside in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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|October to September each year|Number|
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|2006-07                       |6,290 |
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|2007-08                       |6,700 |
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|2008-09                       |6,880 |
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