Schedule 1B fee (the ABWOR core fixed payment in the JP and Sheriff court)

The ABWOR core fixed payment, chargeable under Schedule 1B, Part 1, paragraph 1, applies where ABWOR is being provided in the JP and sheriff court.

The ABWOR core fixed payment (£347.92 in the JP court and £572.00 in the sheriff court) where ABWOR is provided on or after 29 April 2023, covers all work undertaken in the case in circumstances where you are either:

• providing Interests of Justice ABWOR, on the application of a means and merits test, in a cited case, or
• acting as an appointed solicitor, on the application of a means test, where your client appears from custody.

The core fixed payment represents the total fee payable for all work you undertake in connection with a summary case where you are providing ABWOR from beginning to end, except work for which there is a further fixed payment as prescribed in the Schedule. This fixed payment covers all work prior to and attendance at:

• all work relating to assistance by way of representation provided by a solicitor in summary criminal proceedings in accordance with regulation 6 or 6A of the Advice and Assistance (Assistance By Way Of Representation) (Scotland) Regulations 2003 other than that specified below
• a first or second diet of deferred sentence, and
• any subsequent or additional work other than that specified in paragraphs 2 to 5 of Schedule 1B.

The following work is not included in the core fixed payment and is chargeable in addition:

• a third or subsequent deferred sentence (the first or second being subsumed within the core fixed payment)
• the additional payment where the court considers an SER. and the case is disposed of within either of the first or second deferred sentences, to recognise additional work undertaken within the core fixed payment
• a bail appeal under section 32 or an appeal under section 201(4) of the 1995 Act
• supplementary fee where at a holiday court sitting a solicitor acts for a person appearing from custody on the day on which that person is first brought to a court to answer to a complaint.

There are no additional fixed payments in the JP court for a lengthy proof in mitigation, special reasons proof, exceptional hardship hearing or back duty proof. That work and those fees are now included in the enhanced core fee which is payable in all JP ABWOR cases.