SLAB responds to Law Society report with calls for ‘an accurate picture’ of legal aid health

Today’s Times article on the Law Society of Scotland’s report on the financial health of firms doing legal aid suggests we are involved in a bitter row with the profession’s representative body.

That’s not the case. We have no desire to be at loggerheads with those providing people in Scotland with access to justice and ensuring they have the ability to enforce and protect their rights.

What is certain is that we have a number of very serious concerns about the society’s report, the analysis presented and the data and assumptions underpinning that analysis.

The report itself suggests that the majority of firms providing legal aid are profitable, especially those deriving more substantial income from legal aid, but that a very small number of firms with very low incomes (from both private and legal aid fees) will be less financially viable.

Of course there is room for improvement within the legal aid system in Scotland – though perhaps the situation is not as grave as today’s Herald intro claims. We are well aware of this and are already working with the profession to identify and implement opportunities to streamline, simplify and modernise the legal aid system.

This already has delivered, and we hope will continue to do so, changes that manage risks to the legal aid fund with reduced bureaucracy and benefits for solicitors, applicants, the wider justice system and SLAB.

The independent review of the legal aid system recently announced by the Scottish government should also provide a clear assessment of where the focus for reform should lie.

Our response to the report was published on our website yesterday. It gives some more detailed analysis of where we find fault with the report, including the headline hourly figure.

It is just a flavour of the concerns we have.

Before this research was launched we offered to collaborate with the society on the project to help produce a robust, credible and policy-relevant evidence base on these important issues.

We remain willing to collaborate and assist with a re-analysis of the raw data and hope the society will consider this offer.