Advice and assistance declaration form

Where advice and assistance (including “ABWOR”) is being given under the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 or Part 4 of the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019, you are required to complete and retain on file the advice and assistance Declaration Form AA/LAO/CHLA.

This Declaration Form:

• captures all your client’s personal details, needed to grant advice and assistance, to intimate a grant to us and to make any increase in authorised expenditure
• gives your client permission to make the application and authority to us to make any necessary financial enquiries to verify your client’s stated financial position
• gives your client’s permission for their details to be disclosed for the purposes of quality assurance checking.

The Declaration Form will enable you to capture your client’s and your own signature. All Declaration Forms must be:

• Signed and dated by your client
• Signed and dated by you
• Completed in full, including details of the type of ABWOR granted or sought, where applicable

You do not have to send us a copy of the Declaration Form but we will randomly verify if it has been completed and signed appropriately. If it has not you may not be paid for the work you carry out and/or we may seek to recoup from you any monies already paid out from the Fund.

Where your client is not present

If you are not meeting your client in person then you must explain the terms of the declaration to them and obtain their verbal consent to its terms.  You may then select the ‘client not present and agrees with the declaration terms’ option within Legal Aid Online.

• A grant of advice and assistance (including ABWOR) for a child can only be made where you consider that the child is old enough to directly instruct you and where they want you to provide them with legal advice and assistance
• Where the child is making the application, they must sign the Declaration Form
• Only where legal advice and assistance is being applied for on behalf of a child by a relevant person, Safeguarder or other representative, which may include a social worker, unit manager etc., can that person sign the Declaration Form on behalf of the child.
• You can never sign a Declaration Form on behalf of the child unless acting in a representative or fiduciary capacity, such as a Safeguarder
• If the child cannot write, leave the signature blank and you should note in the file that the contents have been fully explained to the child
• The Declaration Form should only be signed by the child once it has been fully completed, the child or their representative should never be asked to sign a blank or incomplete Declaration Form
• You must also and always sign the solicitor’s section of the Declaration Form when acting as the child’s solicitor.

General rules:

• A grant of advice and assistance (including ABWOR) for an adult can only be made where you consider that the adult is capable of directly instructing you to act as their solicitor and where they want you to provide them with legal advice and assistance.
• Where such an adult is making the application, they must always sign the Declaration Form.
• A solicitor can never sign a Declaration Form on behalf of the applicant unless that solicitor is acting in a representative or fiduciary capacity, such as the adult’s curator ad litem.
• If the applicant has someone acting in a fiduciary or representative capacity for them, such as a curator ad litem, then that person can sign the Declaration Form for the applicant.
• The Declaration Form should only be signed by your client once it has been fully completed
• Where your client is instructing you to act directly on their behalf and they are not present when the Declaration Form is being completed, the Form should be sent to them by post or email for signing.
• If your client cannot write, leave the signature blank and note in the file that the contents of the Declaration Form have been fully explained to them
• Your client, or their representative where appropriate, should never be asked to sign a blank or incomplete Declaration Form

You can print the successfully completed A&A application using the option to print before you submit it to us. This is the simplest and most efficient way to obtain your client’s signature if you are completing the application online when your client is in your presence.

At the bottom of the printout, there is a space for your client’s signature. Ensure that both your client and you sign and date this and that you keep it on file.

See our guidance on solicitor and applicant signatures.