Joseph Summers Published: 2nd September 2026 Snapshot There is not enough immigration legal aid to meet eligible demand – so providers increasingly have to make difficult decisions about which clients they take on. The fixed-fee payment system rewards providers for taking on more cases, even if they dedicate less time to each one. The eligibility rules for immigration legal aid make certain types of cases and clients harder for providers to take on. People who are financially eligible for legal aid can struggle to access it because they lack the right kind of evidence. Report One: ‘How Immigration Legal Aid is Paid: Fixed fees and the Incentive to Do Less’ Report Two: ‘Assessing Eligibility for Immigration Legal Aid: Why Some Cases are Harder to Take On’ There isn’t enough legal aid to go around: demand for legal aid far outstrips supply, particularly for immigration and asylum law. So how is our scarce legal aid funding distributed? This project aims to explain how legal aid providers’ commercial incentives may affect the distribution of legal aid. The central argument is that the immigration/asylum legal aid scheme makes certain types of cases and clients more financially rewarding to take on. Its findings are that the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), legal aid providers and the people who need legal aid all want different things. People seeking legal aid want access to a provider who can help them establish eligibility and properly develop their case. Providers need the work they do to be financially sustainable. The Legal Aid Agency, meanwhile, wants to deliver access to justice cost-effectively, using fixed fees and eligibility rules to control spending and target funding. Both reports argue that the immigration legal aid scheme does not align these interests well enough. Providers are rewarded for meeting administrative and financial priorities of the legal aid scheme, rather than for meeting the needs of the people it serves. They conclude that there is no inherent conflict between these different interests: the scheme could be reformed so that LAA, providers, and people seeking legal aid are incentivised to want the same things. Report One: ‘How Immigration Legal Aid is Paid: Fixed fees and the Incentive to Do Less’ The first report considers the way immigration and asylum legal aid providers are paid. It argues that fixed fees incentivise providers to minimise the time spent on each case and maximise the number of cases taken on – a ‘supermarket model’ of provision: “stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap”. Because providers can earn more per hour from quick, simple cases, while complex and time-consuming cases can attract greater financial and compliance risks, the scheme rewards administrative convenience over clients’ needs. Key recommendation: the Immigration Contract’s fixed fee scheme should be reconsidered. It introduces a significant incentive for providers to cherry-pick simple cases and has had questionable efficacy in meeting the policy objectives for which it was introduced. Read the report here. Report Two: ‘Assessing Eligibility for Immigration Legal Aid: Why Some Cases are Harder to Take On’ The second report considers how the eligibility rules on scope, means, and merits can make some eligible cases easier for providers to take on than others. It argues that the immigration legal aid scheme creates a hierarchy of eligible work: some cases are more administratively burdensome, slower to be paid for, or more exposed to the risk of non-payment. Where demand already far exceeds supply, those differences can affect who is able to secure representation. Scope: exceptional case funding can require providers to navigate a complex test and work at risk of non-payment. Providers may lack incentives to coordinate support where clients have several connected legal problems. The report recommends simplifying exceptional case funding and paying providers for supported referrals and coordination across different areas of law. Means: people who are financially eligible can still struggle to prove it, particularly where they lack straightforward evidence, or are waiting for asylum support decisions, or have inaccessible assets overseas. The report recommends implementing the Means Test Review, paying providers for reasonable work helping people evidence eligibility, and improving how asylum support can be verified and used as evidence of means. Merits: providers must carry out a more demanding assessment when deciding whether to take on appeal work, whilst remaining aware that their payment will likely be substantially delayed. The report recommends exploring earlier payment for Controlled Legal Representation so that commercial pressures do not distort decisions about whether a case should continue. Read the report here.