SLAB’s annual report for 2024-25 was tabled in the Scottish Parliament yesterday and showed a five per cent decline in legal aid firms. There are now just 567 firms across all types of legal aid work, criminal, civil and children’s matters.

The number of matters dealt with via legal aid also fell by 3.4 per cent to 170,000 grants, though overall expenditure rose 12 per cent to £169 million.

The report does not include data measuring the extent of unmet demand for legal aid from people who cannot find a legal aid solicitor to take their case.

Ian Moir, the co-convener of the Law Society of Scotland’s Legal Aid Committee, said: “The continuing decline in solicitor firms working in legal aid underlines why the system is in crisis and why investment is urgently needed to reverse this decline.

“It is important to understand that this report does not provide any meaningful information on the most telling signs of this crisis, the people who report it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to get the help they need through legal aid.

“We are pleased to see SLAB signalling in this annual report its willingness to work with us and others in the legal sector towards progressing the change that is needed. We stand ready to work with SLAB, the Scottish Government and others, but the time for talk is over.”

SLAB chief executive Colin Lancaster said the report underscores legal aid’s vital role in supporting access to justice but also highlights systemic limitations.

“While our analysis doesn’t point to a national crisis, there are clear areas of concern that need to be addressed,” he said.

“The current system doesn’t let us secure services where and when they are needed or easily connect people to those services. A system created in the 1950s cannot solve problems it wasn’t designed for, or do so in the accessible, customer-focused ways we rightly expect of modern public services.”

Mr Lancaster also welcomed the Equality, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee’s recommendations following its inquiry into civil legal aid and reiterated SLAB’s “commitment to playing its part in delivering a reformed system”.

He said: “We’ve made progress – proposing changes to simplify civil financial assessments, improving customer service, and supporting the Scottish government’s reform agenda.”