Legal Aid Agency mishandled complaint

What happened

Mr P received legal aid for a court case. In 2010, legal aid was removed because his solicitors could no longer use it for the case because the value of the claim did not justify the cost of continuing. However, Mr P continued with the case and represented himself. There was a £20,000 settlement at the end of the case, and both parties paid their own legal costs.

The Legal Aid Agency held onto the settlement until it had decided how much Mr P owed it under the statutory charge. The Legal Aid Agency levies the statutory charge in cases where a person who has used legal aid for their court case gets or keeps money or property at the end of the case. It is how legal aid is paid for.

Mr P wrote to the Legal Aid Agency about the release of the settlement, but he did not get a response. A family member spoke to the Legal Aid Agency several times, and said a manager was rude during one of the calls. Mr P made a formal complaint in winter 2011. In the complaint, he mentioned the manager his relative had spoken to. He also asked for more information about the settlement.

The manager Mr P had complained about replied to Mr P's complaint. He answered Mr P's query about the settlement but did not address Mr P's concerns about his own management of the case. He explained that Mr P's legal aid had amounted to around £30,000. The manager said the Legal Aid Agency would offset this against the money Mr P had recovered, using the statutory charge.

In summer 2013, the Legal Aid Agency issued its final decision. It apologised for the delay in responding to his complaints and explained that Mr T had to repay his legal aid costs because his final bill was higher than the settlement amount and therefore no refund was due to him.

Mr P argued that his case did not conclude under legal aid, although he had had legal aid in the initial stages, and therefore the statutory charge should not be applied to the full settlement. The Legal Aid Agency's final response said the statutory charge applied and the whole settlement would be offset against Mr P's legal costs.

What we found

We partly upheld this complaint. The Legal Aid Agency correctly applied the statutory charge to the settlement Mr P received. This is because he recovered the money using information and advice that he had been given under legal aid funding, so he was liable to repay the legal costs. The Legal Aid Agency was reasonable to say that as Mr P's final legal bill was higher than the settlement amount, the settlement was offset against his outstanding legal aid costs. We did not uphold this part of Mr P's complaint.

The Legal Aid Agency failed to be open and accountable when it allowed an individual manager to respond to a complaint about himself, and it also missed several opportunities to put things right. Its handling of Mr P's complaint was poor because it failed on numerous occasions to let him know that he would not get any money. That was not customer-focused. We upheld this part of Mr P's complaint.

Putting it right

The Legal Aid Agency apologised for its failure to acknowledge or address Mr P's concerns about how it managed his case. It paid him £200 in recognition of the distress and frustration he experienced as a result of its failure to respond to his enquiries about the release of the settlement.

In addition, we note that since 2014, the Legal Aid Agency's procedures have been explicit that individual members of staff should not deal with complaints about themselves. The Legal Aid Agency issued a reminder to staff to make sure they respond to complaints about individuals in line with the Agency's procedures.