Access to Justice dashboard

Introduction

The Bar Council’s Access to Justice dashboard is an interactive map showing local, regional and constituency comparisons of key access to justice indicators in England and Wales, including active and closed courts, legal aid providers, and legal aid barristers. The aim of the dashboard is to give a micro geographic focus on local access to justice provision, and to document how that provision has changed over time.

This dashboard uses three data sources:

  1. Aggregated data on barrister numbers and main practising locations derived from the data collected by Bar Council and Bar Standards Board membership database which contains basic monitoring information on all practising barristers in England and Wales. This data is as of 1 December 2021.
  2. The data underlying the location of active and closed courts has been provided by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) which is an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice. This data is as of 16 February 2022.
  3. The data underlying the number, names and location of legal aid providers is from the directory of providers as updated on the government website. This data is as of 29 December 2021.
Points to note

Barristers who reported that over 50 per cent of their fee income comes from legal aid work are considered legal aid barristers in the dashboard.

  • We have located barristers according to their main practising address, which gives a sense of where they are primarily based for work purposes. However, barristers are a nomadic profession and will travel to work in different court buildings as necessary. Just because there are no barristers in a particular area, it does not mean that the Bar will not be able to meet any of the legal need in that area, just that there is no local provision of services.
  • Similarly, law centres do provide advice to clients outside their local authority or constituency area. Just because there is no law centre in a particular area doesn’t mean that residents cannot access advice, but that they will need to travel elsewhere to access it.
  • Nightingale courts are temporary courts set up in England and Wales in response to the Covid pandemic to help ease the court backlogs.
  • Law Centres Network (‘LCN’) and Citizens Advice (‘CA’) are registered charities who offer free legal advice, casework and representation to individuals and groups.  
    • Citizens Advice Bradford and Sheffield are both joint law centres and citizens advice providers.
    • Not all Citizens Advice are legal aid providers. The providers that have been included on the map are those who are on the Legal Aid Agency’s directory of providers.

The dashboard visualisation covers England and Wales only.

All the pages on the dashboard are interactive.

How to use this dashboard
  • This dashboard is best viewed on a desktop.
  • Select the tabs at the top of the dashboard to see each category page. You can also click on the arrows at the bottom of the dashboard screen to navigate between pages.
  • Each category (e.g. court estate, LAA providers) has two data tabs split into parliamentary constituency and local authority.

View Access to Justice dashboard in full screen 

Court Estate by PC and LA

Court Estate by Parliamentary Constituency (PC) and Local Authority (LA)

  • Hover over the map to view: the name of the parliamentary constituency or local authority; whether or not the court(s) are active; the number of courts in the area; and the number of practising barristers in the area.
  • To see all the active and closed court areas in England and Wales, you can select the ‘Active’ or ‘Closed’ status above the map. To clear selection, either click on the ‘Active’ or ‘Closed’ again or on an empty space and it will reset.
  • To search for a specific parliamentary constituency or local authority, select the ‘Parliamentary Constituency’ or ‘Local Authority’ dropdown, then  either search or scroll and then select your desired area.
  • To see the site closures , select a year in the ‘Site closures by year’ table and the map and table will update. To clear selection, click on an empty space and it will reset.
LAA providers by PC and LA

Legal Aid Agency (LAA) by Parliamentary Constituency (PC) and Local Authority (LA)

  • Hover over the map to view the name of the parliamentary constituency or local authority, number of barristers and number of legal aid providers in the area. 
  • To search for a specific parliamentary constituency or local authority, select the ‘Parliamentary Constituency’ or ‘Local Authority’ dropdown, then either search or scroll and select your desired area.
LCN and CA by PC and LA

Law Centres Network (LCN) and Citizens Advice Bureau (CA) by Parliamentary Constituency (PC) and Local Authority (LA)

  • Hover over the map to view the name of the parliamentary constituency or local authority, number of barristers and number of LCN/CAB providers in the area. 
  • To search for a specific parliamentary constituency or local authority, select the ‘Parliamentary Constituency’ or ‘Local Authority’ dropdown, then either search or scroll and select your desired area.