Legal Aid and Access to Justice

The Law Society's work in these areas is lead by the criminal and civil legal aid negotiating teams and by the Access to Justice committee, each being panels of experts in the field and responsible to the Council of the Law Society.

To find out more about developments in criminal and civil legal aid and access to justice, see the links on the left.

Latest News

Justice Committee Evidence

The civil and criminal legal aid teams prepared written evidence in response to the open call for evidence from the Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee. The written evidence can be downloaded from this page. Oral evidence was also given and the details can be found on the Scottish Parliament's website.

Civil Legal Aid Negotiating Team Proposals Paper

The civil legal aid team has prepared a proposals paper for consultation with members on the proposals in the government's White Paper on legal aid, and a series of possible alternative proposals for consideration. Further details are available on the civil page on this website.

Scottish Government White Paper

SG published on Wednesday 5 October a White Paper on reform to legal aid in Scotland, "A Sustainable Future for Legal Aid".

Government have proposed a number of reforms to legal aid, with a total saving of around £16m per annum. These include:

• In excess of £1.2m per annum from the SLAB Grant-In-Aid;
• Between £2m and £3m per annum from the programme of SLAB Best Value Reviews, including the recent report on mental health law and work on bar reports;
• In excess of £3m for the introduction of contracting for criminal legal assistance;
• Contracting for civil legal assistance will also be considered by the government (though would require primary legislation);
• By a review of the PDSO duty allocations, which were intended to save £1.3m per annum and have instead saved £0.8m, to secure the additional saving of £0.5m per annum;
• Up to £2.1m per annum from the reform of counsel's fees for first instance criminal work and a commensurate cut to travel fees for advocates as seen for solicitors earlier this year;
• Up to £1.6m per annum from reductions to the rates for solicitors sitting behind counsel and a reform of exceptional case status and additional fees for civil work;
• Savings exceeding £1.2m per annum from extending the use of videoconferencing for prison consultations, police station advice and evidence from witnesses.

The civil and criminal legal aid teams will be updating members shortly on the impact of these proposed changes and will be meeting with SG and SLAB to clarify the detail of these plans.

We would be very interested in views from members on these proposed cuts and any feedback can be sent to Andrew Alexander.

Police Station Duty Scheme

The Criminal Legal Assistance (Fees) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 were laid before Scottish Parliament on 14 September and remove subsumption for police station advice. The regulations come into effect on 31 October.

Further discussions on the police station duty scheme, which remains interim, continue. The outcome of the Carloway Review, expected on 17 November, may herald significant changes.

Criminal Contributions and Civil Justice Council (Scotland) Bill

The government have announced a Bill to introduce criminal contributions, following a consultation on the topic earlier this year. Copies of the consultation responses are available on the Scottish Government website.

The view taken by the Society, with help from members' contributions on the subject, was that the principle that individuals who can pay for their defence, should pay towards their defence was not objectionable. However, the current practice of contribution collection from police station advice is impractical. Also, placing the burden of collection of these contributions would best fall upon the central resource of Scottish Legal Aid Board, rather than solicitors and firms.

The issue of whether individuals acquitted should be refunded for their contributions is significant, and as its implications extend beyond legal aid into privately paid fees, it was recommended that a wider consultation on such an important point be conducted.

Carloway Review

An update on the Carloway Review will be available from this page shortly after its publication, expected on 17 November.

To find out more about the Society's work on legal aid and access to justice, please contact Andrew Alexander on 0131 226 8886 or follow ScotLegalAid on Twitter.