Recent taxation confirms basis for charging for reports incurred by Safeguarders, Child Welfare Reporters and Curators in proceedings funded under civil legal aid

Following a recent taxation decision from the Auditor of Court, Tayside Central & Fife, we expect any accounts that are charging for reports incurred by Safeguarders, Child Welfare Reporters and Curators in proceedings funded under civil legal aid to be prepared and submitted in accordance with that decision with immediate effect.

This update sets out the background to charging and confirms the basis for charging to be used.

Regulations governing charges

In civil legal aid cases, where Safeguarders (in relation to the preparation of a Guardianship report), Child Welfare Reporters or Curators are appointed as Officers of the Court, their reasonable costs are chargeable in terms of regulation 4 of the Civil Legal Aid (Scotland)(Fees) Regulations 1989, as an outlay in the nominated solicitors legal aid account.

This allows us to make payment of outlays “actually, necessarily and reasonably incurred, for conducting the proceedings in a proper manner, as between solicitor and client, third party paying”.

In such cases there are no statutory fees or charges which regulate the work carried out by a Safeguarder, Child Welfare Reporter or Curator.

In their role as an Officer of the Court they are entitled to be paid a fee at such rate at the discretion of the auditor is fair and reasonable.

Situation until now

A number of competing taxation decisions have taken place over the years and this resulted in us accepting accounts on either of the following basis:

• Chapter III of the Act of Sederunt (Fees of Solicitors in the Sheriff Court) which has now largely been superceded by Schedule 1 of the Act of Sederunt (Taxation of Judicial Expenses Rules) 2019; or
• Table of Fees recommended by the Council of the Law Society of Scotland (“Table of Fees for Conveyancing and General Business”) subject to a negative weighting of 20% applied to the costs involved in the preparation of the Report and 15% in respect of all other work.

Confirmed basis for charging

Following the recent taxation decision from the Auditor of Court, Tayside Central & Fife, accounts should be charged on the following basis:

• in accordance with the framework of Chapter 3 of the Table of Fees for Conveyancing and General Business
• charges should be made at the prevailing “unit” rate in rule 3.2 of the Act of Sederunt (Taxation of Judicial Expenses Rules) 2019
• the framing of the report should be charged at three units per sheet; and
• a negative weighting of 20% should be applied to all work that is chargeable including the framing of the report.

For more information

Please contact Steven Carrie, Senior Accounts Specialist, at carriest@slab.org.uk or on 0131 240 2054 if you have any questions.