Immigration Legal Aid and Value for Money: Identifying Missing Data is a newly published briefing paper examining areas where more data is needed and the types of data that are needed to understand value for money in the current immigration legal aid model. An objective of the Legal Aid, Sentencing, and Punishment of Offenders Act of 2012 (LASPO) was to reduce the costs of civil legal aid. Research suggests there is insufficient quantitative data and insufficient good quality data being collected by the government to determine the costs and benefits generated by LASPO and—specific to this research—the impacts of the reduced scope of immigration legal aid under LASPO.

The briefing paper proposes several hypotheses, including:

• Difficulties that appellants face accessing legal representation increases costs for HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS)

• Immigration legal aid helps people to resolve their immigration issues more quickly, which has potential direct cost benefits for health services as well as wider social benefits

• Costs to local authorities where immigration legal aid is not available exceed the savings made by cuts to the budget for immigration legal aid

In addition, the briefing paper identifies specific types of data that are not currently being published and presents recommendations on who could collect these data.

Immigration Legal Aid and Value for Money: Identifying Missing Data is written by Siân Pearce, Dr Emma Marshall and Dr Samuel Engle. This briefing paper is supported by the University of Exeter, Migrants Organise and the Public Law Project.

The full briefing paper is available in English here: https://publiclawproject.org.uk/content/uploads/2024/07/2024HASS018-Briefing-paper-AW.pdf.