Glasgow Bar Association hits out at Scottish government’s three per cent increase in legal aid

Practitioners from the Glasgow Bar Association expressed dismay at the government’s announcement that it would increase fees for legal aid work by three per cent, saying the increase was “rightly met with indignation and incredulity by GBA members”.

Addressing community safety minister Ash Denham MSP, the GBA said it was not merely “crying wolf” and that members’ morale was at its “lowest in recent times”.

“Members certainly do not feel valued. Not valued by the government, not by other court users, not by the wider public. Over time we have no doubt that new entrants to the legal profession will migrate into private client and other properly remunerated areas of law. The attractions of legal aid work are diminishing all the time. Earnings have to be sufficient to sustain a viable business and to maintain an office. Why should a secretary accept a lower salary for typing a letter for a legal aid client than for a private one?”

The letter noted that funding has “remained stagnant for almost twenty years”, while pressures and responsibilities on members have increased.

It also pointed to the Scottish Legal Aid Board’s publication of tables detailing those lawyers and firms given the most in legal aid payouts.

“Whilst we have no basis for claiming that this is intended to fuel the image of the fat cat lawyer, funded at vast public expense (whilst representing undeserving rogues and scoundrels), we have little doubt that it has that effect.”

The GBA also suggested that SLAB’s chief executive feature in the table.

“We understand that he receives annual earnings of between £105,000 and £110,000 (leaving aside any pension entitlement) an amount that, for example, would place him earning above all but two solicitor advocates (see the table of top 20 highest paid legal aid solicitor advocates, 2017-2018). In addition, when summary criminal fixed fees were introduced, in 1999, the chief executive’s annual salary was a mere £70,000, since which time it has increased over 50 per cent. Over the same period, those fixed fees have barely altered.”

The Scottish government’s cash injection into the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service last August was also cited, with the GBA pointing out that this was made in spite of police reports to COPFS declining by 116,000 between 2014-18.

The GBA said: “This was announced as crucial funding to help with the increase in complex cases, and in particular with a large increase in reporting of sexual offences. Consequently, our response to the concerns of the Crown as to the complexity of cases is that those cases are equally as complex to defence practitioners.”