Catalogue description Records created or inherited by the Legal Aid Board, the Legal Services Commission, and predecessors

A Departmental Committee under the chairmanship of Lord Rushcliffe reported in 1945 and in the same year the Lord Chancellor requested the Law Society to frame a scheme on the lines already recommended by the Law Society in its submission to the Committee.

The provisions of the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949 which came into force in 1950 ensured that legal aid was readily and promptly available, that solicitors and barristers would receive fair remuneration and that it should be centrally controlled and administered by the Law Society. The Legal Aid Committee of the Law Society subsequently appointed eleven, and later twelve, Area Committees to administer the scheme in their areas. The Act applied only to civil legal aid. Criminal legal aid remained under the control of the courts with administrative responsibility with the Home Office.

The Legal Aid Act 1960 brought the financial terms of the scheme up to date to take account of the years of steady inflation.

Further legislation was introduced in the form of the Legal Advice and Assistance Act 1972. Those whose means fell below certain defined limits could receive legal advice and assistance up to a cost of £25. This scheme was also known as the Green Form Scheme.

Under the Duty Solicitor Scheme (Legal Aid Act 1982) people taken into custody in police stations could obtain advice at the outset rather than when they arrived in court.

The Legal Aid Board was formally established by the Legal Aid Act 1988. However, from April 1988 to April 1989 a Shadow Legal Aid Board was created to manage the transferral of functions over from the Law Society to the new Board. From April 1989 the Legal Aid Board rather than the Law Society administered legal aid.

The Law Society is not a public record body. However it was agreed at the time of the transfer of responsibilities that the records of the Law Society which had been inherited by the Legal Aid Board were public records.

Under the Access to Justice Act 1999 the Legal Aid Board was replaced by the Legal Services Commission on 1 April 2000. The Legal Services Commission runs two schemes: the civil scheme for funding cases as part of the Community Legal Service and a scheme for funding criminal cases.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 made provision for the abolition of the Legal Services Commission, which was replaced on 1 April 2013 by the Legal Aid Agency, an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice.