Scottish Government reform paper to address challenges facing legal aid system

The Scottish Government (SG) has set out three key strands of work for improving and reforming the legal aid system in a paper published today.

Bill Moyes, Chair of the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) welcomed the Legal Aid Reform Discussion paper as an important next step in the journey to redesign the legal aid system to meet the needs of the people of Scotland for decades to come.

He said that SLAB would be working with SG, the legal profession and advice sector in 2025 and beyond to help make the vision set out in the paper a reality.

The SG paper recognises the benefits of the demand led system and its uncapped budget while also accepting that changes are required to ensure legal aid can support the social and justice issues people face.

Key commitments in the paper include:

• bringing forward regulations to parliament in 2025-26 that make it easier for solicitors to work with legal aid funding, and for those who need legal assistance to access it
• resuming work to conduct research on, and implement reform of, legal aid fees
• working with stakeholders on the development of a reformed future legal assistance system, including designing a system around user needs and being able to respond to them.

These strands sit alongside SG’s recent commitment to bring forward legislation to ensure non means-tested legal aid is available for bereaved families participating in deaths in custody FAIs.

Mr Moyes said various teams across SLAB had contributed to the proposals in the paper, which identifies meaningful ways of improving the system without losing its core principles.

“At SLAB, we don’t believe that in its current form the system does – or can – deliver what the public rightly expects of a modern, accessible public service.

“Scotland needs a system that can adapt depending on the issues people are facing now and in the future.

“It has to provide services designed with peoples’ needs at the forefront and clearly focused on delivering stated outcomes.

“This paper is an important next step in the journey to redesign the legal aid system to meet the needs of the people of Scotland for decades to come.”

In an article for the Law Society of Scotland’s Journal last month Mr Moyes stressed the importance of collaboration and engagement for all aspects of the reform agenda.

He said that the kinds of change proposed can’t all be delivered overnight, but collaboration is key not only to identifying short-term improvements but also to developing proposals for the primary legislation needed to deliver a redesigned system.

“We have flagged that the current system is complex and hard to navigate. It isn’t person centred. There is no mechanism for connecting those in need with solicitors or advice agencies that can help them, and no guarantee that services with sufficient resources will be available to provide help.

“Equally, the current system has limited scope for targeting resources at priority issues or securing services in any given place or for a particular type of problem.

“Add these weaknesses to the challenge of ensuring that delivering legal aid-funded services remains a sustainable economic prospect for providers, and change is undoubtedly needed.”

More information

The Scottish Government’s Legal Aid Reform Discussion paper is available on its website.