Investigating abuse of legal aid

Taxpayers want to know that every pound of public money invested in legal aid is spent properly. We proactively investigate legal aid cases involving applicants and the legal profession. Each year the Board saves substantial amounts of public money – last year (2003/4) almost £700,000 - because of its investigations work into legal aid applicants.

Legal profession

In 2003-2004, investigations into the conduct of solicitors led to three formal complaints to the Law Society of Scotland, the regulatory body for solicitors, and one case was referred to the procurator fiscal and police.

Applicants

The Scottish Legal Aid Board carefully assess applications to ensure that only those who qualify get legal aid. The Scottish Parliament sets the tests for granting legal aid.

We make checks on the information applicants give us to prevent fraud. Sometimes we get information from opponents or other people, and if we suspect we have been given false information, our investigations team will look into the case.

If we find someone has deliberately misled us, we may stop legal aid at any time, and the applicant may have to repay money for the cost of the case. Sometime cases are passed to the procurator fiscal for possible prosecution.

In 2003-2004 we investigated 930 cases where someone who had applied or received legal aid did not appear to have given the Board full information when they applied for legal aid or, in civil cases, had not told it about a change in their circumstances. As a result, the Board refused 65 applications, stopped legal aid in 146 cases and referred five cases to the Crown Office for possible prosecution.

Over the past few years, there have been a number of successful prosecutions of legal applicants. These were cases where applicants were found to have lied about their financial situation to enable them to fraudulently obtain legal aid. Some cases have resulted in fines and prison sentences.

If anyone has information about a legal aid applicant that they think has misled us into getting legal aid, they should get in touch with us.