Improving Exceptional Case Funding

This briefing provides an update to Public Law Project’s earlier report, Improving Exceptional Case Funding: Providers’ Perspectives, which was published in January 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given the changing landscape of legal advice and how professionals are able to provide assistance to their clients under the continuing effects of the pandemic, Public Law Project carried out a survey in June-July 2020 to update its previous findings.

Our key findings are:

• 60% of legal aid providers state that the pandemic has had a direct impact on their capacity or ability to make ECF applications.
• 80% of legal aid providers were unaware of the steps that the Legal Aid Agency implemented to ensure the accessibility of the ECF scheme in response to the
  pandemic
• Nearly three quarters of legal aid providers (73%) thought that more should be done to improve the accessibility of the ECF scheme during the pandemic.

Read our full briefing below.

Improving Exceptional Case Funding: Responding to COVID-19