Criminal legal aid fees to rise from 28 July 2026

Legal aid payment rules rarely make the front page, but they change what happens long before a verdict. In a GOV.UK announcement, the government said it has laid a statutory instrument to change parts of the Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme, or AGFS. If you're new to the jargon, AGFS is the system used to pay defence advocates for legally aided work in the Crown Court. A statutory instrument is a type of secondary law used to amend the rules. These changes will apply to cases with a representation order dated on or after 28 July 2026, and that date matters because the representation order is the formal point at which legal aid is granted.

The changes themselves are narrow, but not trivial. The fixed fee for additional preparation will rise from £62 to £81. The same fee will also become available in cases that end with a guilty plea. And the minimum trial length needed to qualify for a wasted preparation claim will drop from five days to two. **What this means:** more of the work advocates do before and around a case may now be paid. That includes preparation that can be time-consuming but easy to miss from the outside, such as reading evidence, checking paperwork, advising a client and getting ready for hearings that may shift quickly.

The GOV.UK notice says these measures are only one part of a wider reform package for AGFS. Most of that larger package will still go through public consultation. These three changes, though, are being introduced earlier because the government says they are especially important to the criminal Bar. The notice also says the policy follows extensive engagement with the sector, including through the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board. That matters because legal aid debates are often really about something bigger: whether the justice system pays properly for skilled work that the public rarely sees, but fair trials rely on.

One of the most telling changes is the decision to extend the additional preparation fee to guilty plea cases. If you hear 'guilty plea' and imagine a simple, low-work outcome, it is worth slowing down. A case can still require careful preparation before a plea is entered, especially when an advocate needs to assess the evidence, advise the client and help the court reach the right outcome efficiently. The government says this extension is meant to make sure advocates are paid for preparatory work across a wider range of case outcomes. Put simply, the rule now reflects a basic truth: preparation still matters even when a case does not end in a full trial.

The reduction in the wasted preparation threshold from five trial days to two days is also easy to underestimate. According to the government, lowering that threshold broadens eligibility so that more cases can claim the fee. In plain English, if an advocate has prepared for a case that later changes course, there is a better chance that work will count for payment. We should keep the scale of this in proportion. This is not a complete overhaul of criminal legal aid, and it will not end the long-running argument about whether defence work is funded well enough. Even so, the likely effect is to recognise preparation more realistically, which may ease some of the pressure that builds up when complex work goes unpaid or underpaid.

There is also a practical issue here, because policy changes only matter if people can actually claim under the new rules. The government says the fee should be claimed through the Claim for Crown Court Defence billing tool, better known as CCCD. Advocates are told to go to the miscellaneous fees page, open the dropdown list, select 'additional preparation fee' and submit the claim in the usual way. There is a snag, and it is worth noting now rather than later. The GOV.UK notice says the CCCD update needed for the higher fee, including claims in guilty plea cases, may not be ready by 28 July 2026. If that happens, the government says it will provide temporary guidance on how claims should be sent in.

For readers trying to make sense of why this matters, the lesson is bigger than the numbers. Court systems do not run only on judges, juries and dramatic speeches. They also run on fee rules, admin systems and the question of whether professionals are paid for the work needed to prepare a case properly. The documents named by the government are the amending regulations and the updated Crown Court Fee Guidance, with the AGFS calculator to be updated later. The sums here may look modest, but the principle is not: when preparation is essential to fairness, the way the state pays for that preparation deserves close attention.