Errata: legal aid in private family law involving evidence of domestic violence or child abuse
Source: data.gov.uk (2018-05-25)

Legal Aid Statistics. This dataset provides quarterly aggregated data on overall volume and claim expenditure on the legal aid schemes administered by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) for England and Wales. The reports include statistics on Criminal legal aid covering Police stations, magistrates' courts, Prison Law and the Crown Courts alongside Civil Legal Aid covering Legal Help, family mediation, Civil Representation and exceptional case funding). On an annual cycle further datasets released include Client and provider characteristics, Criminal central funds and higher courts, Appeals and Provider based volume and expenditure figures with geography. All datasets are designed to monitor the workload and expenditure of the legal aid system with further more detailed available than provided in accompanying tables.

Errata 
 
Relating to: 
 
Legal Aid Statistics Quarterly, 
April to June 2014  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Published 3 December 2014 

 
Errata 
 
Applications for civil representation legal aid in private family law cases 
on the basis of evidence of domestic violence or child abuse, or risk 
thereof. 
 
1. This note is to advise users that the figures provided on the above category of civil 
legal aid in the bulletin ‘Legal Aid Statistics: April 2014 to June 2014’, published on 
25 September 2014 were incomplete. 
 
2. The figures affected were included in the csv file that comprises the most detailed 
part of the statistical release. The other parts of the release (main document and 
tables) are not affected. Corrected figures are provided in Figure 1 below. 
 
Detail 
 
3. It was recently discovered that the figures previously published by the LAA on 
applications for, and grants of, civil representation legal aid in private family law 
cases which are made on the basis of evidence of domestic violence or child 
abuse are incomplete in that they exclude a portion of such cases.   
 
4. This is caused by the way those cases were originally entered onto LAA data 
systems. When some applications were received and processed, the data field 
relating to which specific category (or categories) of evidence was involved was 
completed incorrectly. 
 
5. This did not affect the processing of these cases, but it did mean that the data 
held for reporting purposes did not identify which category of evidence had been 
provided. This in turn meant that during the compilation of statistics, although 
these cases were included within the overall private family law category, they were 
not identified as belonging to this specific area of civil representation legal aid.  
 
6. The cause of this problem has been addressed through improved staff training to 
ensure cases are entered onto LAA data systems correctly, and the data should 
be unaffected from December 2014 onwards. However the data for the period 
prior to December cannot be retrospectively corrected due to the difficulty and 
disproportionate cost involved in doing so. 
 

Revised figures 
7. The figures provided in Figure 1 below now include these cases that were 
previously wrongly excluded.  It is not possible to identify to which category of 
evidence they relate so they are shown as a separate, third category within the 
overall totals of applications received and granted. 
 
Figure 1: civil representation legal aid in private family law cases on the basis 
of evidence of domestic violence or child abuse, or risk thereof 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
2013-14 
 
2014-15
 
Apr-Jun
Jul-Sep
Oct-Dec
Jan-Mar 
 
Apr-Jun
 
 
 
Revised figures 
 
 
 
 
 
Applications received 
 
 
Total 
1,710
2,480
2,334
2,263  
2,090
   of which  
 
 
 
 
 
 
evidence related to child abuse 
280
391
371
365  
383
evidence related to domestic violence 
615
1,083
964
1,152  
1,064
categories of evidence unknown 
815
1,006
999
746  
643
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Applications granted 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Total 
1,241
1,816
1,668
1,657  
1,465
   of which  
 
 
 
 
 
 
evidence related to child abuse 
192
277
255
255  
253
evidence related to domestic violence 
494
845
700
893  
799
categories of evidence unknown 
555
694
713
509  
413
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Change compared with figures 
published on 25 September 2014 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Applications received 
 
 
Total 
814
998
987
724  
624
   of which  
 
 
 
 
 
 
evidence related to child abuse 
0
0
-3
-3  
-3
evidence related to domestic violence 
-1
-8
-9
-19  
-16
categories of evidence unknown 
815
1,006
999
746  
643
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Applications granted 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Total 
668
761
669
511  
341
   of which  
 
 
 
 
 
 
evidence related to child abuse 
24
17
15
3  
-20
evidence related to domestic violence 
89
50
-59
-1  
-52
categories of evidence unknown 
555
694
713
509  
413
1. 
Changes to the figures for applications where the evidence category is known are due to 
routine updates to data systems. 
 
8. Figures produced on this corrected basis will also be included in the next 
edition of Legal Aid Statistics Quarterly, due to be published at 9.30am on 
Thursday 18th December 2014 

Contact details and further information 
 
Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:  
Tel: xx-xxxx-xxxx  
Email: xxx@xxx.xx  
 
Other queries or comments on the issues set out in this note should be 
directed to the Legal Aid Agency’s statistics team: 
 
Richard Field 
Head of Statistics 
Legal Aid Agency 
7th floor 
102 Petty France 
London SW1H 9AJ 
Tel: xx-xxxx-xxxx 
Email: xxx@xxx.xx 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Crown copyright 
Produced by the Ministry of Justice 
 
Alternative format versions of this report are available on request from 
xxx@xxx.xx