Summary Criminal Legal Assistance: New single system from 14 December 2026

The new single system for Summary Criminal Legal Assistance (SCLA) comes into force on 14 December 2026. It will replace Summary Assistance by Way of Representation (ABWOR) for summary procedure cases and enable legal aid to be put in place at an earlier stage.

This is the biggest change to summary criminal legal assistance since 2008, when appointed solicitor ABWOR was introduced to allow named solicitors to represent their own clients in custody and undertaking cases.

A short video outlining the main changes is available below. More details and updates will be issued over the next few months. We will also hold webinars in October and November on the new provisions and the system changes arising from these reforms.

A single system for summary cases

The new system will apply to all summary procedure cases. Summary ABWOR will be abolished and replaced by SCLA, which will allow any solicitor to deal with any case, regardless of plea. It will also remove the appointed solicitor requirements.

The financial eligibility test will be standardised for all cases under the undue hardship test. This will allow SLAB to consider household outgoing payments. As with the current summary and solemn criminal financial eligibility tests, partners’ resources will not be aggregated, and client contributions will not apply.

All other Criminal ABWOR arrangements will remain in place for matters such as parole board cases and breach of conviction proceedings, including breaches of community payback orders. Regulation 4 ABWOR provisions will continue to apply. Regulation 6 ABWOR for summary criminal cases will be abolished and replaced by SCLA for all summary procedure cases, not only those where the plea is not guilty.

In summary cases, solicitors will be able to apply for legal aid once the complaint has been served. They will no longer need to wait until after the pleading diet. This means legal aid can be in place much earlier in the case.

Automatic legal aid and special urgency

Automatic Legal Aid (ASLA) will be extended to all cases where the client appears from custody or on undertakings. It will be available to any solicitor, either to cover work until legal aid is granted or, where the solicitor chooses, to cover all work where the case concludes with a guilty plea.

There will also be new Special Urgency (SU) arrangements, with new payments where court appearances are urgently required in cited cases before legal aid is determined, but the application is then refused.

The full fixed payment, currently £572, will be payable in the following circumstances:

• any case where summary legal aid is granted, regardless of plea
• any case where the solicitor is acting under ASLA and the case concludes with a guilty plea, or where the Procurator Fiscal (PF) accepts a not guilty plea or does not call the case
• Any case where the solicitor is acting under the new SU arrangements and the case concludes, as above, during the period of SU work and before any refusal of legal aid.

Where the work under ASLA or SU stops short of case conclusion, and legal aid is not subsequently granted, the payments available will be:

• £75 where the work involves one diet
• £150 where the work involves two or more diets.

For SU cover, an application for SCLA will always be required and certain conditions must also be met.

For ASLA, the solicitor must intimate this to us within 14 days. An application for summary legal aid can also be made in any case where the solicitor requires SCLA for the remainder of the case. This will apply where the plea is uncertain or expected to be not guilty.

Where legal aid is granted, the summary fixed payment will subsume any prior work carried out under SU or ASLA.

More information

Please contact Kingsley Thomas, Head of Criminal Legal Assistance.
E:  thomaski@slab.org.uk.