4. What assessment has the Counsel General made of the performance of the Legal Aid Agency's online system? OAQ53009

We have drawn to the attention of the Ministry of Justice a number of technical issues that could prevent or deter people from using the Legal Aid Agency’s online system. But the wider problem here is, of course, the hugely detrimental effect on access to justice of the UK Government’s cuts to legal aid.

I thank you for that answer, Counsel General. I ask the question because I've read some very concerning reports detailing how glitches within the system are forcing victims of domestic abuse to attend court on their own. Essentially, the Legal Aid Agency’s client and cost management system is crashing, so solicitors are unable to complete the necessary paperwork to attend hearings alongside their clients. And we do already know that savage cuts to legal aid are one of the many ways that austerity has disproportionately hit women. We know that hundreds of thousands of people are no longer eligible for legal aid, including victims of domestic abuse, who cannot secure injunctions to protect themselves from harm because they can't afford to pay the contributions. So, I will ask, if you haven't already done so, that you make urgent representations to the Ministry of Justice and that they act to fix this issue on behalf of the victims that they and their system are badly letting down.

Well, can I associate myself with the comments the Member makes in her question? We have been making representations to the Ministry of Justice in relation to this point in particular. She will want to know that the data that the Ministry of Justice has made available indicates a dramatic fall in legal aid provision in Wales, with 2,440 fewer civil representations in the last year than in 2011-12—2,440. The fall is particularly pronounced in private family proceedings, which she touches on in her question.

I'm aware of the article that she refers to, and it's part of a pattern of failure in relation to the legal aid online system, which we have identified and communicated to the Ministry of Justice. This includes the system sometimes failing to recognise answers, providing error messages routinely, not providing a full Welsh language service, and perhaps most worryingly of all, it's possible, when looking through a computer history, to spot on the user's page when they have been on the legal aid website, seeking services there, which, for victims of domestic abuse using a shared computer, as she will recognise, could have profound consequences, and let the perpetrator of abuse have advanced warning of the potential for intended legal action.

So, these are significant failings. No-one is suggesting that the online system has no role to play here—she will have heard from my answer to Lee Waters earlier that I think there is significant potential, generally—but it cannot be the case where the UK Government's making deep cuts to legal aid, but it cannot provide a system that is reliable, dependable and secures the privacy and safety of those who are using it.