Termination of children’s legal aid other than on change of circumstances

In terms of Regulation 31 of the Children’s Legal Assistance (Scotland) Regulations 2013 we may stop making legal aid available in certain situations where the conduct of your client is incompatible with the continued grant of public funds Legal aid may be withdrawn in the following circumstances:

• Where they have instructed you to conduct proceedings in an unreasonable way so that some unjustifiable expense is caused to public funds.
• Where they have not complied with any condition imposed by us in terms of section 28G of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986.
• Where they have failed without reasonable excuse to attend for interview or to provide information or documents required.

Termination in these circumstances does not affect your client’s status during the period while the grant of legal aid was in force.

However, in terms of Regulation 32 of the 2013 Regulations, if you client fails to provide information requested by us under Regulation 23 (duty to report change in circumstances) we have the right to  recover  from your client the amount of fees and outlays paid out of the Fund to you and counsel less any contribution amount paid to us by the client.

In addition, Regulation 31(b) allows us to stop legal aid if:

• We are satisfied that we have wrongly assessed whether it is reasonable in the particular circumstances of the case that your client should receive legal aid and
• We consider that legal aid should never have been made available.