Court hearings over the future of children and appeals by immigrants are among the top targets for savings outlined in a Ministry of Justice document obtained by The Times.

A multi-million-pound court computer system also faces the axe and controversial plans to charge fees to court users will be accelerated.

At the same time, magistrates are expected to increase productivity, saving £22.5 million. Another £5.5 million in savings will be demanded from tribunals.

In all, a potential total of more than £900 million savings are identified for the next three years. The proposals will cause uproar and dismay within the legal profession, coming just weeks after the disclosure of a £90 million shortfall in the courts’ budget.

Among a series of “quick wins” that will recoup huge savings are the axing of IT systems in the courts designed to manage cases in the family and civil courts and cut paperwork.

One, a so-called “Electronic Filing and Document Management System” would save nearly £46 million.

But under the heading of “policy” savings are a series of initiatives to make further cuts in the legal aid budget, which currently stands at £2 billion a year.

Controversially these include “cost recovery on immigration appeals”, which could involve charging immigrants fees to mount challenges over refusal of the right to remain in Britain.

Judges have already spoken out against Government policy to move courts to a system “full cost recovery” by which they are financed solely out of fees charged to litigants.

But the document indicates that far from taking such concerns on board, this programme is to be accelerated, reaping £46 million.

A second highly-sensitive proposal is to “reduce double representation in public law child care” — the hearings over whether a child should be removed from its home.

Lucy Theis, QC, a family law barrister, said: “This could mean cutting out the use of Queen’s Counsel with a junior barrister — or more likely, the separate legal representation for different members of a family in a hearing over child care.”

Other proposals include curbs or cuts on the growth area of legal advice to prisoners (on Parole Board hearings or disciplinary matters); bringing forward legal aid means testing for defendants in the crown courts and abolishing those oral committal hearings which still happen in some cases.

Other unspecified cuts in legal aid will reap £25 million and along with plans to “descope” some legal aid activities, saving a further £6 million.

Russell Wallman, director of government relations at the Law Society, said: “Legal aid and the courts’ service are already cut to the bone and starting to cut into the bone.

“If we are serious about funding legal aid and the courts, I don’t see how there can be further cuts.

“The Goverment should prioritise as a result of the courts crisis: there’s an enormous amount of money against no very clear benefit going on ID cards, for instance.”

Cindy Barnett, chairman of the Magistrates’ Asociation, said: “Anything at all which affects the administration of justice we think is wrong.”

Magistrates understood the need to make savings. But that did not mean they would not speak out of they hit the wrong targets.

The cuts could mean further court closures; or more likely, she said, cuts in court staff such as legal advisers. But that could delay output of work, not increase it.

The document also reveals the extent of the ministry’s liabilities, much of it for ongoing legal proceedings.

It lists “financial risks and unfunded initiatives”, some of which are “irrestible and will need to be added to the savings target” although some are resistible.

They include the proposed compensation scheme for asbestos workers suffering from a lung disease called pleural plaques (cost estimate £329 million) and pending judicial review proceedings being brought by local authorities over family court fees (£40 million).

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