Solicitors to stage Parliament protest for legal aid

The Scottish Solicitors Bar Association is to hold a protest outside the Scottish Parliament this coming Monday, 6 December, at 12 noon, in support of its campaign for a "significant and meaningful increase" in legal aid funding.

On the same day – the St Andrews Day public holiday – a number of local faculties, including Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, will boycott the Monday custody court. On the St Andrews Day holiday last year the Edinburgh and Glasgow Bar Associations took joint action, and the action is now being repeated with more faculties taking part. 

The SSBA is continuing to highlight that the fixed fee for summary criminal cases – "the core of our workload" – was set in 1999 and is now worth significantly less in real terms than it was then; and that the criminal defence bar is unable to compete with the salaries offered by other public bodies, in particular the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service, leading to younger members continuing to leave criminal defence work in significant numbers.

In a statement the SSBA said: "We witnessed near universal support from the Borders to Shetland for a withdrawal from duty plans during COP26, yet very little has changed for legal aid professionals."

It added that along with the Law Society of Scotland, it wrote to the Minister for Community Safety on 12 November identifying areas of urgent concern for legal aid reform, and has yet to receive a response.

The SSBA is inviting all solicitors to join the protest at the Parliament.