Chapter IDG52800

Published date19 March 2016
Record NumberIDG52800
CourtHM Revenue & Customs
IssuerHM Revenue & Customs
The Legal Aid Agency

The Legal Services Commission was abolished with effect from 1 April 2013 and replaced with the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) (an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice).

The LAA is the body responsible for the administration of Legal Aid in England and Wales. Legal Aid supports access to justice, by ensuring people who might not otherwise be able to afford it have access to legal representation for certain categories of legal action.

Sharing information with the Legal Aid Agency

The LAA runs the Legal Aid scheme which is overseen by the Ministry of Justice with a budget set by the Treasury. In order to ensure that Legal Aid is granted to appropriate applicants, the LAA need to verify the information they receive when someone makes a claim for Legal Aid.

The Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into force on 1 April 2013, and S22 provides that ‘an information request may be made only for the purposes of facilitating a determination about an individual’s financial resources for the purposes of this Part’ (ie whether they are eligible financially for Legal Aid).

The Legal Aid (Information about Financial Resources) Regulations 2013 extend the scope of the information which the LAA may request from HMRC but this is still only for the purpose of determining eligibility for Legal Aid.

Ensuring information is shared lawfully

All disclosures of HMRC information must be lawful. Please see IDG40300 for more information on lawful disclosure as provided by the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act (CRCA) 2005.

To be lawful, HMRC...

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