Introduction
It is now about ten years since organisations such as the Law Society and the Legal Action Group started to use the term “Legal Aid Deserts” and draw up maps to show where the deserts were across the country.  The Law Society’s latest research from May 2026 show that 41% of the population do not have a housing legal aid provider in their local authority area, a figure which has grown by around 6.6% since 2019.  The problem is therefore continuing to get worse with no end in sight. 

What Can The Legal Aid Agency Do About the Problem? 

People might expect the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) to be alert to this problem and to be taking steps to resolve it. This has not happened. Infact,  you will rarely hear the LAA or the Ministry of Justice use the term “legal aid deserts” at all let alone take steps to deal with them. When pushed on the lack of geographic coverage, the LAA’s responses generally boil down to two main approaches:

1. “Sufficient Capacity Exists Nationally” (The Data vs. Reality Gap)The LAA’s standard institutional line during procurement and tendering cycles is that they monitor access to services regularly and that there is technically “sufficient capacity” on a national level. When a specific procurement area receives zero bids or a local provider shuts down, the LAA frequently points to the availability of remote advice and national telephone helplines (such as Civil Legal Advice) as a valid alternative to face-to-face provision. The reality on the ground is that people trying to get Legal Aid advice and/or representation find it extremely difficult to find any providers at all and then any that have the capacity to take on their case.

2. Continuous Re-Tendering and Contingency Tenders
   When a total lack of local provision becomes undeniable—particularly in areas like Housing Possession Court Duty Schemes (HPCDS) where a physical presence in court is strictly necessary—the LAA’s position is to continually run emergency or supplemental tender processes. 

These approaches show that the LAA is in denial as to the very existence of the problem and is therefore not even starting to engage with it. 

Why Is The Legal Aid Agency Unable To Ensure The Availability of Legal Aid?

There are a number of reasons for this. I will deal with three of the big ones. 

The first is that the LAA has never been in the business of providing Legal Aid services. This has been left to what are known as “providers”, the firms of solicitors, Law Centres and other agencies who provide legal services for the clients to do this. The role of the LAA has been limited to funding the providers. The restrictions placed on funding by successive governments (which the LAA in fairness cannot be blamed for) has meant that more and more providers have been unable to carry out Legal Aid work. When they drop out the LAA is unable to create new providers to fill the gaps. All the LAA can do is try and reshuffle the shrinking pack of cards and hope to give the impression that there is no problem. 

The second is that the LAA are still wedded to a business model which which has not existed since the 1980s. Back then there were very large numbers of providers keen to carry out Legal Aid work. All that the LAA had to do was pay them. The failure of the LAA to recognise that this model stopped applying about 25 years ago explains why they suggest that re-tendering contracts is the answer to nobody applying for contracts. 

The third problem is that the LAA’s default position when it comes to engaging with providers is a hostile and unhelpful one. If you don’t believe me ask any provider when was the last time their Legal Aid Contract Manager or anyone else at the LAA contacted them to ask what steps the LAA could take to help them provide Legal Aid services without going out of business. There may be invitations to unpaid consultations or to CCMS training webinars but nothing to ensure that providers do not join the legions of those who have already dropped out. I may need to write a separate post on this relationship and what can be done to improve it. For now I will just say that LAA staff seem to be afraid that working with rather than against individual providers may expose them to criticism for favoritism or even corruption. 

Where Do We Go From Here?
If I started talking about solutions here, this post would be a very long one, which most people would probably run out of time to finish. My plan is to write further posts exploring the nature of the problem(s) giving rise to the continuing increase in Advice Deserts and the steps that can be taken to reverse the trend. These will have to go beyond the LAA and involve: –

• The Ministry of Justice exploring how people are to have access to justice not just through providers but also through courts. Judges and Court staff should be trained and required to spot when litigants do not have access to justice and to take steps to correct this in the cases before them
• The Minsitry of Health and Social Care taking steps to ensure that GPs and hospitals are aware of the implications of people’s medical conditions impact on their ability to carry out activites and engage in social functions. 
• The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government taking steps to ensure that the duties and powers that already exist under different statutes for protecting people are utilised proactively and not restricted through gatekeeping. 

A lot of this does come down to increased funding, but that on its own is not the solution and may actually only make things worse. What is needed is a recognition of the problems giving rise to limited access to justice and what steps all relevant agencies can take to prevent the inevitable injustice that we continue to see as a result of advice deserts.