The statistical bulletin published by the Legal Services Agency (LSA) yesterday covers both criminal and civil cases and provides more details than a headline bulletin released at the end of May.

A total of £119,990,900 was authorised from the legal aid fund in the year leading up to March 2025 — the highest annual total on record and a 45.5 per cent increase on 2019/20.

However, the number of legal aid cases granted in 2024/25 was down to 61,573, the lowest annual total over the past six years, down 3.6 per cent on the previous year and 17.1 per cent lower than in 2019/20.

“This continued reduction reflects more stringent verification of capital threshold as part of the financial eligibility test associated with applications for civil legal services,” the Department of Justice said.

Of the £120m total, £68m (56.6 per cent) was authorised to solicitor firms and £51.5m (42.9 per cent) authorised to barristers, with the remaining expenditure attributed to third party providers.

Focusing on profit costs alone (excluding VAT and disbursements), the 2024/25 split in expenditure between solicitor firms and barristers narrows to 52.1 per cent and 47.4 per cent respectively.

Of the £51.5m paid to barristers in 2024/25, 60 per cent was authorised to junior counsel and 40 per cent to senior counsel.

In 2024/25, taxed expenditure accounted for 28.2 per cent (£33.8m) of all legal aid expenditure, the vast majority of which (£30.9m) was authorised in relation to civil proceedings.

During 2024/25, the legal aid grant rate for males (45.9 grants per 1,000 population) was two-and-a-half times that of females (18.5 per 1,000 population). Despite displaying similar grant rates for civil cases (10.3 and 10.5 respectively), males were over four times more likely to be the recipient of legal aid in criminal cases (35.6 vs 8.1).

In 2024/25, a total of 431 solicitor firms registered on LAMS to provide legal aid services in Northern Ireland. This equates to a rate of 22.4 firms per 100,000 population.