Legal Aid Inquiry

Closes 17 Apr 2025

Opened 13 Mar 2025

Contact

Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee

ehrcj.committee@parliament.scot

Overview

The Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee is looking at civil legal assistance (Civil Legal Aid and Advice and Assistance for civil justice issues) and grant funding for advice organisations.

Civil justice issues are the branch of the law which deals with disputes about rights and responsibilities – such as about housing, relationships or social security issues. 

The Committee has heard that there can be significant barriers to accessing civil legal assistance for some clients, and that the current rules around eligibility can exclude some types of action.

The Scottish Government has recently published a discussion paper on legal aid reform. This proposes a three-stage approach to reform:

  • changes to regulations to simplify the current system, to be delivered in 2025 to 2026 - for civil legal assistance, proposals include introducing standard fees for work relating to adults with incapacity legislation and assessing financial eligibility using standardised personal allowances
  • reform of legal aid fees, to be delivered in 2025
  • longer-term reform, including testing different funding models and embedding user experience in decision-making, with a view to introducing new legislation in the future

We’d like to hear your views about:

  • what is working and not working within the current civil legal aid system
  • what changes could be made in the short and longer term to address access issues

We’re interested in hearing from:

  • solicitors who provide, or have provided, civil legal assistance
  • organisations providing advice on civil justice issues, or campaigning on access to justice issues
  • people who have experience of accessing advice on civil justice issues, or using civil legal assistance
  • organisations which provide support to people who may need to access civil legal assistance
  • professional and public bodies working in this sector

Defining "civil justice issues"

This is the branch of the law which deals with disputes about rights and responsibilities – such as about housing, relationships or social security issues.

Questions

You can answer any questions that are relevant to you.

  1. What are the current barriers to accessing civil legal assistance? Can you give examples from your own experience, or refer to any research in this area?
  2. Do you have any suggestions for shorter-term improvements (not involving changes to the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986) which could be made to the current system for civil legal assistance?
  3. Is grant funding from the Scottish Legal Aid Board helping to support access to justice? Can you provide examples of any successes or problems with this funding stream?
  4. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of the current system for providing civil legal assistance?
  5. What do you think would be the strengths and weaknesses of reforming civil legal assistance along the lines recommended in the Evans Review (“Rethinking Legal Aid”, 2018)?
  6. What are your priorities for longer-term reform?
  7. Do you have any other comments?

How to submit your views

Please submit your views using the online submission form, linked to below.

We welcome written views in English, Gaelic, Scots or any other language. 

The call for views closes on Thursday 17 April 2025.

Give us your views

Click here to complete the submission form

Interests

  • EHRCJ