Access to justice dashboard

Introduction

Our 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
  • Legal aid barristers

The dashboard provides a micro geographic focus on local access to justice provision, and documents how that provision has changed over time.

This dashboard uses three data sources:

  1. Aggregated data on barrister numbers and barrister main practising locations is 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 01 September 2024.
  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 24 June 2024.
  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 27 August 2024.
Points to note
  • Barristers who report that over 50% 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 will travel to work in different court buildings as necessary. If 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
  • Nightingale courts are temporary courts set up in England and Wales in response to the Covid pandemic to help ease the court backlogs
  • 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

View access to justice dashboard in full screen