Research on the impact of legal aid cuts:
We would like to invite you to take part in an ESRC-funded research study into the impact of legal aid cuts on the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
The main aim of the research study is to examine the impact of legal aid cuts in criminal defence work, with a particular focus on applications made to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). We are interested in finding out if the cuts have had an impact on the number, nature and quality of applications being made.
If you/your firm have previously advised and assisted clients with (potential) applications for review to the CCRC. Your experiences will make a valuable contribution to our project and we would be very interested to hear your views on the impact of legal aid cuts on applications made to the CCRC. Our results will be shared with the Justice Committee via the CCRC. We understand that you or your firm may have decided to cease taking on this type of casework, but we would still be very keen to hear from you. One of the things that we are interested in learning about is whether the ‘market’ has contracted in recent years.
In order to try to ascertain as many views as possible on the topic of legal aid cuts, we will be conducting interviews with people working in criminal defence services. We understand that your time is very precious, so the interview should take up to an hour to complete. Your participation is, of course, entirely voluntary and responses are recorded anonymously.
Please feel free to contact us should you have any questions, observations, or concerns about the survey or about this project as a whole.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Prof Richard Vogler, Dr Lucy Welsh, Dr Liz McDonnell, Dr Amy Clarke and Dr Susann Wiedlitzka
School of Law, Politics and Sociology
University of Sussex
CCRC flyer A5