SLAB consults on Criminal Quality Assurance Scheme changes

Proposed changes to the Scottish Legal Aid Board's Criminal Quality Assurance Scheme have been put out to consultation by the Board.

Feedback from the consultation will be taken into account in finalising the scheme and peer review criteria in time for the new cycle of peer reviews due to start later this year.

All criminal solicitors who have registered with SLAB to provide criminal legal assistance are subject to peer review, a process overseen by SLAB’s Criminal Quality Assurance Committee.

Peer reviews consist of an examination of a range of solicitors’ files by one or more of a panel of peer reviewers who are experienced and currently practising criminal solicitors, appointed after an open recruitment process. 

Files are assessed against set peer review criteria for summary, solemn and criminal appeal cases, covering issues like initial client contact, bail matters, handling of preliminary or guilty pleas, trial preparation, communication of outcomes, and legal aid matters. 

The Criminal Quality Assurance Committee and the peer reviewers have identified a number of issues in the scheme which now need to be updated. These changes must await the start of a new cycle of peer reviews to ensure consistency of the reviews in the current cycle. The start of a new cycle of peer reviews later this year provides the opportunity to introduce changes and updates to the peer review criteria which form the basis of the assessments.

Changes proposed to the scheme include a new outcome system, procedure for routine reviews in the second cycle, and procedures for reviewing solicitors who are unable to provide sufficient files for a routine review, as well as revised peer review criteria.

Click here to view the consultation paper. Responses are due by 5pm on 19 October 2018.