Aggregation for time at court including any necessary travel

The Legal Aid and Assistance By Way of Representation (Fees for Time at Court and Travelling) (Scotland) Regulations 2014, amended the respective legal aid regulations and made specific provision as to how fees are payable to solicitors and solicitors’ clerks, in relation to the provision of legal aid or assistance by way of representation for time spent at court including any necessary travel.

Paragraph 14 of the Notes on the operation of Schedule 1A and Schedule 3, Part 1 (ABWOR) sets out how fees for time at court and travelling must be calculated and makes clear they are payable on the basis of the total time engaged per day.

This means that where time is spent on any of the following work activities:

• the time conducting a hearing
• non-advocacy time (eg time spent meeting the client, opposing party or any other time based charge for time spent at court; and
• any necessary travel to and from court

at various stages throughout the day, the individual blocks of time spent on those activities must be totalled up and then rounded up to the nearest unit of time specified, before the prescribed fee rate is applied.

For example, an account chargeable on a detailed fees basis must be charged on the following basis:-

The total time engaged is 125 minutes (2 hours 05 minutes) made up of 25 minutes conducting a hearing, 40 minutes meeting and waiting and 60 minutes travel.

The total time engaged should be rounded up to 135 minutes (2 hours 15 minutes) and calculated on the following basis:

• conducting the hearing 30 minutes (25 minutes rounded up 5 minutes to next quarter hour)
• meeting and waiting 45 minutes (40 minutes rounded up 5 minutes to next quarter hour)
• travel 60 minutes
• total time payable is 135 minutes (2 hours 15 minutes).

A more complex example including gaps in time, is provided below:

The total time engaged is 290 minutes (4 hours 50 minutes) made up of 160 minutes (2 hours 40 minutes) conducting a hearing, 80 minutes (1 hour 20 minutes) meeting and waiting time and 50 minutes spent in travel.

The total time engaged will be rounded up to 300 minutes (5 hours) and calculated on the following basis:

• conducting the hearing 165 minutes (160 minutes rounded up 5 minutes to next quarter hour)
• meeting and waiting 75 minutes (80 minutes less the 5 minutes rounded up above) as this reflects the actual time additional to the total time for conducting the hearing
• travel 50 minutes rounded up to 60 minutes
• a total time is payable of 300 minutes (5 hours).

Accounts submitted on our online system will calculate the fee payable automatically as long as you have correctly selected the work item description “at court” for any work undertaken at court including any necessary travel.

If the “at court” work items have not been selected (eg you have selected the work item meeting, travel (other), etc. as opposed to those work items descriptions “at court”) the aggregation calculation is not engaged and we must then calculate the fee payable and, where necessary, make the appropriate adjustment.

This may slow down the assessment and payment of your account so you should always ensure you select the correct work activity.

In most cases the calculation of the time charged and corresponding fees payable are straightforward.

However, where charges fall to be apportioned (this is normally in relation to travel to and from court) as a result of that work relating to  more than one case you need to be mindful that you correctly allocate travel time to each case. For example:

The minimum advocacy fee is 15 minutes for solemn criminal legal aid and 30 minutes for summary criminal legal aid or criminal ABWOR, so in the example above only the advocacy fee would be payable.

No time should be claimed separately for the time engaged at travel or meeting with the client.

Where you require to travel as part of undertaking another chargeable work activity (eg meeting a client in hospital or prison where that time is not otherwise covered by any other fee) the times engaged should be aggregated before you calculate the fee payable. For example:

We will allow 60 minutes of chargeable time charged on the basis of:

• 30 minutes of non-advocacy time; and
• 30 minutes of travel.

We will not allow 20 minutes non-advocacy (rounded to 30 minutes) and 40 minutes travel (rounded to 45 minutes) as that would result in a charge of 1 hour and 15 minutes which would exceeds the actual time that you have been engaged.

As a general rule different work activities on any given day are chargeable separately in terms of the respective fees regulations and tables of fees.

However, mindful that you must always conduct cases reasonably and with due regard being had to economy, we will seek further clarification, where appropriate, in circumstances where there are multiple charges of the same type of work activity over the course of a number of days particularly where those are separated by short gaps that can result in the total time claimed being greater than the actual time spent on that activity.

Although this is relatively unusual it does occasionally arise in accounts which have multiple perusal charges and the volume of disclosure/productions in the case often makes up a significant element of the account.