Member's statement: Legal Aid: Social Value
Member's statement by Mrs Ciara Ferguson on .
- MLA
- Mrs Ciara Ferguson
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 17 February 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Legal Aid: Social Value
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4802378
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Investment in legal aid yields substantial benefits not only for individuals but for their families, our communities and our public services. I thank the Law Society and Rocket Science for their report on the social value of legal aid, which I urge everyone to read and consider. Using a social return on investment methodology, the report highlighted a significant return. For every £1 that was invested in legal aid, £8.32 of social value was created.
Amongst many key findings, the report revealed that legal aid plays a crucial role in reducing strain on our public services and alleviating congestion in the legal system. Legal aid assists clients in retaining employment, avoiding severe debt and homelessness, managing stress, averting family breakdown and improving their longer-term opportunities. Our legal profession, which is at the heart of delivering access to justice, including through legal aid services, continues to face significant challenges. Legal practitioners have dealt with stagnant fees for decades, coupled with delays in payment, which has undermined and reduced the viability of this essential service and undermined public trust and confidence in the legal system. We know the challenges posed by continued underfunding, including solicitor shortages as firms struggle to recruit and retain staff or keep their legal aid workload, case backlogs and ever-increasing strain on the profession. Legal aid is not just a publicly funded service; it is a lifeline. The report is a powerful testament to the role that legal aid plays in ensuring justice and equality, particularly for some of the most vulnerable members of our society. Any reduced availability of legal professionals and access to legal aid threatens to diminish equal access to justice for all. Legal aid should be viewed not as a cost to society but as an essential investment in fairness, equity and access to justice. We need immediate action to ensure the long-term sustainability of the system; it is fundamental. The report on legal aid provides compelling evidence for a more strategic view of, and an increased investment in, legal aid. The reality that we all must recognise is that we are facing an urgent access to justice crisis that demands immediate attention, and we must ensure the urgent delivery of sustained funding for that vital service. Legal aid is not merely a support mechanism for people in crisis; it is a fundamental pillar of our justice system and should be protected and supported accordingly.
401 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.95).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.95 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.98 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.02 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:57 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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