CUSTOMER SERVICE

We aim to provide a high level of service to all our customers.

Service standards and performance targets for 2008-2009

The Board publishes service standards that set out the level of service each of our customer groups can expect at each stage of their dealings with the Board. The service standards form our performance indicators which are set out in our Corporate Plan, and we report on our performance against these targets each year in our Annual Report.

You can read about some of the changes we have made to our performance targets for 2008-2009. You can also read a pdf with all of our performance targets for 2008-2009.

Our service standards tell you the level of service you can expect from us, including how long it will take us to do things. They are effective from 1 April 2008. For the detailed information on our service standards, please select from the customer group below:

• Civil legal aid - applicants and assisted persons
  
  
• Opponents of applicants and assisted persons
  
  
• Criminal legal aid - applicants and assisted persons
  
  
• Children's legal aid - applicants and assisted persons
  
  
• Advice and assistance recipients
  
  
• Solicitors
  
  
• Advocates
  
  
• Freedom of Information Publication Scheme requests
  
  

Surveying your views

The Board has an on-going research programme to survey the views of our customers. In 2003, we undertook three major surveys, of applicants and opponents, advice and assistance users and of solicitors. Read about the results of the advice and assistance users survey and the other two customer surveys. You can read more about our current custimer research work.

Welcoming our customers' views

We want to hear your views about about the service we provide. We need to know when things have been done well, and when things have gone wrong. We know that we can learn from our mistakes and want to use them to keep improving our service. Read more in Complaints about the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

Complaints - the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

If you have a complaint about the Board, and have used our complaints process - see our leaflet for more information - and are not satisfied with our response, you may be able to complain to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. The Ombudsman’s Office can consider complaints about failures by public bodies in: how they manage their service; to provide a service; in the service they provide.

The Ombudsman has considered a number of cases about the Board and has published details on four investigations. The most recent case was in February 2008:

• The complainant (Mr C) was a solicitor representing a company which was defending a court action.  The pursuers in this case had applied for Legal Aid and Mr C complained that delays in reviewing the award of Legal Aid were prejudicial to his clients. Read more on the Ombudsman's website.