COMMENTS last week by a spokesman for the Guernsey Bar Council indicate how difficult a problem it will be to curb the rising cost of legal aid in Guernsey.

While the Policy Council’s concerns are on the headline cash figure – £2.2m. last year against a budgeted £1.4m. and a 61% increase since 2008 – the increasing demand is actually fuelled by measures introduced by the States itself.

These include the way cases involving domestic violence and children are now dealt with by the courts, and there will be further future expense when the new mental health law introduces tribunals.

While the demand for legal aid is, in effect, being driven by government activity, including the planned introduction of a statutory scheme, its proposed course of action to economise is to bear down on lawyers providing the service.

Admittedly, few islanders will have much sympathy for advocates, but what may not be appreciated is that the charge for aid work has been pegged at £167 an hour for the last seven years.

For most people that’s still a lavish hourly rate but for highly trained and skilled legal professionals it is a lot less than can be commanded in other areas of work, which is why there will be regular departures into private practice even if Treasury and Resources carries out its threat to create a civil service-based public defenders service.

But, as the Bar Council says, the concept of having public defenders representing islanders against the public prosecutor and operating out of the same office hardly feels independent.

And when it comes to fairness, the prosecution here – unlike in England – do not have costs awarded against them, which scarcely promotes a more efficient administration of justice.

In addition, that hardly seems fair to a defendant who has charges dropped against them or where the matter is dismissed because the prosecution has failed to make its case.

So while the cost of legal aid is a real issue, there is a great deal more to it than simply bashing lawyers in the wallet.