people down -- due to a budget squeeze.

According to the Legal Aid Committee's annual report the total number of people getting subsidised for court cases was 514 for 1995-96.

It was the first decline for "many years'' and was due to a combination of factors -- but the Legal Aid Committee was still more than $500,000 over budget.

Committee chairman Puisne Judge Richard Ground said one factor in the fall could be economic and the other was constraints on the size of the group's budget.

"It will be noted that for the first time in several years there has been a fall-off in the number of applications by about five percent. This may be due to economic factors.

"In addition, as noted last year, the Committee has felt constrained by the size of the appropriations made by the Legislature for Legal Aid to adopt an increasingly rigorous approach to the exercise of its discretion in non-mandatory cases,'' said Mr. Justice Ground in his report, which was tabled in the House of Assembly on Friday.

Over 1995-96, the committee refused 41.5 percent of all applications, compared with 36 percent in 1994-95 and 26 percent in 1993-94.

"The effect of this, when taken together with the overall drop in applications, has been a 12.5 percent reduction in the number of cases granted,'' added Mr. Justice Ground.

For 1995-96, the committee was allocated $450,000 -- but $995,000 was paid out in legal fees. In 1994-95, $661,000 was paid in fees.

A case can take about a year to go through the legal system and the drop in the number of legal aid cases granted will not be felt for about another 12 months.

Steps have already been taken to reduce costs -- by increased vigour in approving applications, by limiting the amount of work on cases and by critically reviewing bills.

One person has also been appointed to manage the scheme, although the appointment came too late to affect the 1995/96 year.

"The effects of these steps will, however, take about 12 months to show, that being the approximate average time that it takes a case to go through the system from approval to payment of final bill,'' said Mr. Justice Ground.

"The next step will be to formulate proposals for legislative reform to streamline the operation of the scheme to enable it to respond effectively to the current level of demand.''