Counsel Magazine

THE Bar Council has voiced its concerns over government plans to cut legal aid for vulnerable children and families, saying that cuts of between 20% and 30% being proposed by the Ministry of Justice would risk miscarriages of family justice.

The warning, supported by a statement from the leading children’s charity the NSPCC, follows a recent report from the Family Law Bar Association, which found that expert family barristers are being driven away from their work to represent the interests of vulnerable women and children as a result of repeated cuts in legal aid pay.