Government plans to end legal aid training scheme.

The government is planning to end their legal aid training scheme, the Guardian reports. The scheme supports young lawyers wishing to work on legal aid cases to qualify and give advice on issues such as welfare benefits, immigration and crime.

The training scheme grant costs 2.6 million a year and is to be scrapped under the governments’ attempts to make cutbacks across the justice sector, leaving more than 750 lawyers without funding to support their training.

It is thought that the training scheme cutbacks will disproportionately affect lawyers from underprivileged backgrounds who have entered the profession to give access to justice to those who would not ordinarily be able to afford it. Small firms who recruit such lawyers are also expected to be affected by the governments' decision.

The Ministry of Justice have defended their plans as being a necessary part of cost cutting within the legal sector, reaffirming the governments’ priority of reducing public sector debt.

Arguments opposing the government plans have centred around the cost of the training scheme being relatively small and the legal sector suffering from such cutbacks. Particular concerns were raised about the fact that the government appears to be attempting to rid legal aid provision of diversity without an extensive review of the legal aid system.

Posted 12.07.10