Who we are and what we do

The Scottish Legal Aid Board was set up in 1987 to manage legal aid in Scotland. We are a non-departmental public body responsible to the Scottish Government.

Our work is overseen by Board Members, who are appointed by Scottish Ministers. The number of Members can vary from 11 to 15. To give a balanced range of knowledge and experience, they include people with backgrounds in business, the advice sector and the wider community as well as solicitors and advocates and a person with knowledge of court procedure and practice. Read more about our Board Members.

Ministers in the Scottish Government decide legal aid policy. Ministers propose the legislation to set the rules for legal aid, and the fees to be paid to the legal profession.  The Scottish Parliament makes and changes legislation – including the tests for granting legal assistance.  These tests are then applied to every single case.  In advice and assistance and some special urgency cases, solicitors apply the tests.  For civil and criminal legal aid we apply the tests, except in some criminal and children’s cases, where the courts decide.

The budget for legal aid is different from many other public services: it is not a set amount.  The Scottish Government gives the Board the necessary funds to meet the cost of cases.  This means we never have to refuse someone legal aid simply because there is no money left to pay for their case.

Our work
A large part of our job is to decide who should get legal aid. If it is granted, legal aid is used to pay solicitors, counsel - advocates and solicitor advocates - and other costs of the case. The solicitor could be in private practice, employed by the Board or in a law centre.

Our work includes:

• advising Scottish Ministers on how legal aid is working, and ways to develop it
  
• managing the Legal Aid Fund and deciding whether to grant applications for legal aid
  
• deciding if people have to pay towards the cost of legal assistance, then collecting these amounts
  
• assessing solicitors’ and advocates’ accounts for legal aid work, and paying them for the work they have done
  
• registering firms and solicitors who do legal assistance work and making sure these firms and solicitors maintain high standards, including funding civil quality assurance which is run by the Law Society of Scotland
  
• investigating and tackling fraud and abuse of legal aid
  
• developing a network of Board employed solicitors who offer criminal legal advice and representation, and also under Part V of our legislation, developing advice services using Board employed solicitors on civil matters
•  exploring new ways of delivering legal aid services.

 When provisions in the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 are commenced, and subject to decisions by Scottish Ministers, our work will include:

• registering agencies and their specialist advisers who are not lawyers to provide advice and assistance and making sure they meet standards set out in a Code of Practice
• grant funding advice organisations.

Find out more about the types of assistance available under legal aid and our approach to confidentiality.

You can also read aboutour mission and objectives.