Further measures will support legal aid work: minister

Further measures are in hand to ease pressures on legal aid practitioners during the COVID-19 emergency, the Community Safety Minister has confirmed in a letter to the legal profession.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board has previously announced administrative measures to enable payments to be received more quickly (click here to access all its COVID-19 related announcements), and in her letter the Minister, Ash Denham, said she too was "keen to find ways to support cash flow in order to help alleviate some of the pressures that the current pandemic is causing, and to do so in the immediate future".

Extensive work has taken place with SLAB on how to expand the current scheme of interim payments, for all aid types. "Some changes need primary legislation, which will be put in place as a priority."

Adaptations to the court system and the management of cases will be necessary, and to ensure that solicitors and advocates receive appropriate remuneration for these new procedures, new legal aid regulations are being developed.

Ms Denham also encouraged all solicitors and advocates with any accounts still in preparation to finalise and submit these as soon as possible, and to "make full use of the existing interim payment schemes and, once SLAB is able to extend these and necessary legislative fixes are available, to take full advantage of the extended and more flexible arrangements". SLAB had been working hard to deal with the increased number of accounts submitted, and would issue guidance on these changes shortly.

She also reminded practitioners of the support being made available to businesses through UK Government measures. That information can be found here.