England and Wales

Escape fee, separate matters and mileage

Legal Aid Agency police-station remuneration for a unique file number on or after 22 December 2025. This is not a freelance agency charge and it is not an HMRC mileage allowance.

Source: The Criminal Legal Aid (General and Remuneration) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, SI 2025/1251 (made 27 November 2025; in force 22 December 2025 (reg 3 from 31 December 2025)). Last checked 1 Oct 2026.

Source: Criminal Bills Assessment Manual, Version 27 (October 2026). Last checked 1 Oct 2026.

Supported: one police-station advice and assistance matter, hourly profit costs at the Schedule 4 rates, the £320 fixed fee and the £650 escape threshold (all schemes). If hourly profit costs exceed £650, the claim is £320 plus the excess. It is not the full hourly total. Costs equal to £650 stay on the fixed fee. VAT is not included. Disbursements, including mileage, are not part of the threshold test.

Not calculated: UFNs before 22 December 2025 (scheme-specific fees are not in this module), and any automatic “double fee”. Sources checked 5 October 2026.

SI 2025/1251 regulation 5 applies the new rates by the date of the relevant determination (on or after 22 December 2025). The Legal Aid Agency’s Guide to the Changes in Reporting Crime Lower Work uses the unique file number date. This calculator follows that LAA reporting practice. It does not resolve a rare case where the UFN date and the determination date fall on different sides of 22 December 2025.

Profit costs

UFN date

Rate band

Attendance £54.57 per hour. Travel and waiting £30.22 per hour. The serious-offence rows in the regulations do not set a separate travel rate, so those bands use the duty travel rate for the same hours.

Attendance (hours)

Travel (hours)

Counted in the escape test. On assessment, travel is normally capped at 45 minutes each way unless the destination-station rules apply. This page does not apply that cap.

Waiting (hours)

Telephone advice in the threshold test

Mileage disbursement

Miles

Mileage rate

Double fee — not calculated

“Double fee” is not a term defined in the Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013 or in the 2025 Standard Crime Contract Specification. The contract does not pay twice the fixed fee because there were two interviews or two attendances. Paragraph 9.77: if the client is under investigation for a number of offences, the starting point is one police station attendance fixed fee. More than one fixed fee is possible only where the client has genuinely separate legal problems requiring separate advice, which must be justified in a file note. Paragraphs 4.40 and 4.41: two matters that need advice on one occasion only, or that arise from the same set of circumstances, are not separate police-station matters. This module will not turn those tests into a number.

Sources checked 5 October 2026: Criminal Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013 Schedule 4; SI 2025/1251 (including regulation 5); 2025 Standard Crime Contract Specification paragraphs 4.37 to 4.41, 5.43 and 9.75 to 9.103; Criminal Bills Assessment Manual Version 27 section 5.13; LAA Travel and Subsistence Guidance; LAA Guide to the Changes in Reporting Crime Lower Work. Figures are exclusive of VAT.

Sources & further reading

Links are to official publishers (legislation, gov.uk, CPS, LAA, Sentencing Council). Case law on this site is limited to entries in our verified case-law registry. Always confirm the current version before relying on it in live advice.