PUBLICATION SCHEME

Section 1 - About the Scottish Legal Aid Board and Legal Aid

Legal aid allows people who would not otherwise be able to pay, to get help with their legal problems.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board was set up in 1987 by the Legal Aid ( Scotland) Act 1986 to manage legal aid in Scotland. We are a non-departmental public body responsible to the Scottish Executive.

The Board is situated in Edinburgh, employing around 300 full-time staff. Twelve Board Members, appointed by Scottish Ministers, oversee the work. To provide a balanced range of knowledge and experience, they include people from the wider community as well as solicitors and advocates.

The Board’s mission is to promote the development and delivery of appropriate access to quality legal assistance for those eligible, in a cost-effective manner.

Our work includes:

• advising Scottish Ministers on the current operation and development of legal aid provision
  
• managing the Legal Aid Fund
  
• exploring different ways of delivering a legal aid service, for example by running
  pilot schemes
  
• developing operational plans and procedures to improve the delivery and administration of legal aid
  
• assessing applications for legal aid
  
• examining solicitors’ and advocates’ accounts for legal aid work, and paying them for
  that work
  
• fixing any payments people have to make to the cost of legal assistance and dealing with all collections, refunds and queries
  
• registering firms and solicitors under our Code of Practice in relation to criminal legal assistance and monitoring their ongoing compliance
  
• registering firms for civil legal assistance and inspecting firms’ administration arrangements
  
• investigating and pursuing abuse of legal aid.

Scottish Executive Ministers are responsible for overall legal aid policy and the Scottish Parliament deals with legislation affecting legal aid.

The conditions for granting legal aid and advice and assistance are set down in legislation and the Scottish Parliament sets fee rates. We aim to make consistent, timely and sound decisions on granting applications, and in assessing and paying solicitors’ and advocates’ accounts.

Three main types of help are available under legal aid:

• Advice and assistance

Advice and assistance can cover any matter of Scots law. Solicitors make initial grants up to a set financial limit and we decide on increases in authorised expenditure.

• Civil legal aid

Civil legal aid allows a case to be taken to court. We make decisions on all aspects, including applications, agreement to use counsel or experts, and requests to incur unusual expenditure.

• Criminal legal aid

Criminal legal aid funds the defence in a criminal case. We make decisions on almost all aspects, except in solemn cases (more serious cases such as murder or serious assault) where the judge or sheriff will make the initial decision on whether to grant legal aid.

We aim to be open in our dealings with all stakeholders, including applicants, assisted persons, opponents, the legal profession, Scottish Ministers, MSPs and the public.

However, people entrust us with both sensitive personal information and details about cases. Under section 34 of the Legal Aid ( Scotland) Act 1986, with some limited exceptions, we may not pass on information anyone gives us under the Act without their consent. A Board Member or employee who supplies information in breach of this section could be guilty of a criminal offence.