Legal Aid in Northern Ireland: Headline Statistics 2024/25
Date published:
The Legal Services Agency Northern Ireland today published Statistical Bulletin 1/2025 ‘Legal Aid in Northern Ireland: Headline Statistics 2024/25’. It is the Agency’s third Official Statistics publication.
This bulletin presents headline 2024/25 legal aid statistics for Northern Ireland (alongside 2023/24 equivalent figures), focusing on applications granted and authorised expenditure for criminal and civil cases.
Summary
Key findings from the bulletin include:
- In 2024/25, a total of 61,573 cases were granted legal aid. Of these, over two-thirds (67.5%; 41,570) were criminal cases with 32.5% (20,003) representing civil cases granted by the Agency.
- At 61,573, the number of applications granted in 2024/25 shows a 3.6% reduction on 2023/24 (63,881).
- While the number of criminal grants in 2024/25 (41,570) decreased by 6.1% compared with 2023/24 (44,260), the number of civil grants increased by 1.9% (from 19,621 to 20,003) during the same period.
- A total of £119,990,900 was authorised from the legal aid fund in 2024/25. This represents the highest annual total on record, and a 5.2% increase on the previous year when expenditure totalled £114,007,192.
- In 2024/25, authorised expenditure was split fairly evenly between criminal (50.8%) and civil (49.2%) cases.
- While criminal expenditure increased by 15.1% between 2023/24 and 2024/25, civil expenditure fell by 3.3%.
- In 2024/25 just under £68.0m (56.6%) of legal aid expenditure was authorised to solicitor firms, with just over £51.5m (42.9%) authorised to barristers.
Notes to editors:
1. This Official Statistics release presents headline legal aid statistics for 2024/25, drawing select high-level comparisons with the previous year. While Official Statistics produced to date by the Legal Services Agency Northern Ireland (LSANI; ‘the Agency’) have contained an in-depth analysis of legal aid activity in Northern Ireland, recent engagement with users identified a need for a timelier release summarising high-level, headline statistics. It was subsequently agreed that, going forward, the Agency will produce two separate annual statistical publications in this series. Accordingly, this headline release will be followed by a more detailed 2024/25 publication in Autumn 2025.
2. Data underpinning this publication have been extracted from the Agency’s digital case management system (LAMS) as annual snapshots. While the Agency is responsible for adjudicating on applications for civil legal services, the grant of criminal legal aid is a judicial function. Accordingly, data covering the grant of criminal legal aid, while recorded on LAMS, are ultimately sourced from the case management system (ICOS) within Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunal Service (NICTS) and shared between the two organisations through a daily interface arrangement.
3. Official Statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs and are produced free from any political interference. They are also subject to restrictions in terms of pre-release access.
4. The bulletin is available in HTML format from either the LSA (DoJ) website (www.justice-ni.gov.uk/articles/annual-statistics-legal-aid) or by contacting:
Information and Analysis Unit
Legal Services Agency Northern Ireland
3rd Floor, AIB Building
92 Ann Street
Belfast BT1 3HH
E-mail: IAU@lsani.gov.uk
5. Department of Justice media enquiries should be directed to the Department of Justice Press Office via email
6. The Executive Information Service operates an out of hours’ service for media enquiries only between 1800hrs and 0800hrs Monday to Friday and at weekends and public holidays. The duty press officer can be contacted on 028 9037 8110.