The Law Society working together with the Scottish Legal Aid Board have developed a Quality Assurance scheme to help ensure value for money for the taxpayer and assure those in receipt of legal aid of the quality of the service provided.

Civil Legal Assistance  

In October 2003, the most significant reforms of civil legal aid for over fifty years were implemented – one of these was the introduction of registration and quality assurance for civil legal aid practitioners.

The introduction of quality assurance and registration means that any firm that provides civil legal assistance must now be entered on the Board's civil legal assistance register. Registration lasts for three years and firms must meet administrative requirements established by the Law Society and audited by civil compliance auditors from the Scottish Legal Aid Board. Firms are then subject to ‘peer review’ which is carried out by the Law Society and involves the inspection of files to ensure that they meet agreed quality standards.

The peer review takes place at least once every three years, and is carried out by experienced civil practitioners recruited by the Law Society of Scotland, who have received additional guidance and training. In addition, there is a Quality Assurance Committee, which oversees the work and training of the reviewers and ensures consistency throughout the process. The peer review will involve looking at a sample of a firm’s files against agreed and tested criteria. The purpose is to review the quality of the work carried out on behalf of the client and the Board, based on evidence contained within the file. It is intended primarily to help firms meet the required standard, but in those cases where a firm fails a first, a second and then a final review, with the option of a special review, there is the possibility that it will result in that firm no longer being permitted to provide civil legal assistance.

Civil Compliance Auditors, employed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board, oversee the administrative review for civil legal aid firms and the Law Society oversees the quality assurance scheme for civil legal aid firms. Civil Compliance Auditors’ responsibilities include checking compliance with the Law Society’s ten administrative requirements and providing the sample of files for the Law Society’s peer review process.

Criminal Legal Assistance

The Code of Practice for criminal legal assistance was published in April 1998. This required solicitors and their firms to be registered on the Criminal Legal Assistance Register (CLAR) which took effect from 1 October 1998.

Compliance Auditors

The role of Compliance Auditor was initially created with the introduction of the criminal Code of Practice in 1998, and since then, Criminal Compliance Auditors have been monitoring each registered firm’s continuing compliance with the Code of Practice. This duty has been mainly carried out through a rolling programme of compliance audits designed to cover each registered firm at least once within the audit cycle - currently, three years.

Registers

An additional responsibility of the Compliance Auditors is maintaining both the Civil and Criminal Legal Assistance Registers (CivLAR and CLAR respectively). Up-to-date versions of these are regularly posted on the Board’s website, but by law the Criminal Register has to be published annually.  

Any solicitor or firm wishing to find out more about registering to practice either criminal or civil legal assistance should refer to the legal profession area of this website.