More than 792,600 legal assistance services were completed across Australia in 2022-23 using funding provided under the National Legal Assistance Partnership Agreement (2020-25), according to new experimental national statistics released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Sarah Hinde, ABS head of legal statistics, said: "This new dataset gives a snapshot of the types of services provided by Legal Aid Commissions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, and Community Legal Centres, and the legal problems for which clients seek assistance."
"For example, the reported data shows that over half of the services completed in 2022-23 were legal advice, meaning there were about 409,970 services where a client sought advice to help them to resolve their legal problem.
"Almost a quarter, or 180,527 services, were duty lawyer services, where a lawyer is assigned to provide free legal assistance to people with a matter before a court or tribunal," Dr Hinde said.
There were 426,930 clients that received a completed service, meaning their legal matter was 'closed' or finalised during the period. Of these, just over half were female (222,370) and 46 per cent were male (194,919).
These new statistics are included in the first experimental release of Legal Assistance Services, which features data about clients who received legal assistance services during the 2022-23 financial year, and the nature of these services.
"Today's released data fills a gap in available legal assistance statistics and represents the foundation of a national evidence base. This will, over time, inform service planning and delivery for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians who would otherwise experience barriers to accessing legal assistance.
"From here, the ABS will continue working closely with the legal services sector and governments to expand and improve the available statistics," Dr Hinde said.
This data only reports on a portion of the services provided by Legal Aid Commissions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and Community Legal Centres. It does not reflect the complexity of the services or the resources used to deliver them, and shouldn't be reported as such.
The ABS has partnered with the Australian and state and territory governments to collect the data as described in the National Legal Assistance Partnership Agreement (2020-25). We would like to thank the legal assistance services sector for their ongoing efforts in creating this first national publication and working to improve the data for future releases.
