Voluntary attendance at police station by client

Your client will be booked in by the police and their details entered on their National Custody System (NCS) if they ar invited to attend an interview .  This will allow you to obtain the NCS police reference number which you need for submitting any claim for attendance at the interview.
If your client is not interviewed, and is charged right away and thereafter detained in custody, then again their details will be entered by the police on their NCS custody system. You should then be able to get the reference number from the police to allow you to claim for the consultation with the client.

However, if the client is not interviewed, and not detained at all in the police station but is charged and released, then no claim can be submittedf under the A&A regulations introduced for the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016.  Where no interview takes place, and the client is not detained, then you can still grant standard advice and assistance in the normal way.

• Should the time engaged discussing matters in my office by be added to the time engaged at the police station?

Any time necessarily engaged with the client in the office would not be covered under the CJA advice and assistance. A separate grant of standard advice and assistance (with standard eligibility criteria and a contribution, if any) should be made available to the client if they are eligible, to cover any work actually, necessarily and reasonably done prior to the voluntary attendance. The standard accounts procedure also applies.