https://www.slab.org.uk/guidance/table-of-fees-3/
https://www.slab.org.uk/guidance/table-of-fees-3/
We have created a dedicated legal aid fees page to allow you to easily access the table of fees you need.
This information is still also contained in the relevant legislation and regulations but we have duplicated it on a dedicated page following your feedback.
Availability of Advice and Assistance
This page includes a list of example questions you may want to ask clients when assessing their financial eligibility for advice and assistance, and relevant information you should see. It includes questions to ask child applicants; married or cohabiting applicants; and applicants with more than one dwelling house. It also covers the issue of deprivation of resources, and what to do if the client is unable to answer these questions at a first meeting.
Advice and Assistance Application Procedures
Find out how you must apply for children’s A&A, timescales for doing so, when different category codes are appropriate and who may make applications.
Advice and Assistance Application Procedures
Find out when you need a fresh grant of A&A for your client and how far you can act under one grant throughout the children’s hearing process.
Advice and Assistance Application Procedures
This page includes information on the limit of authorised expenditure in A&A. It covers what the limit is, how you can apply for an increase, our process for reconsidering a rejected request for an increase, urgent telephone requests for increases and the availability of retrospective increases.
Advice and Assistance Application Procedures
Find out about the likelihood and implications of your client being subject to property recovered or preserved (clawback) provisions under Children’s A&A.
Verification of financial eligibility for children’s advice and assistance and ABWOR
Read about why you should verify your client’s capital, even if they receive a passported benefit, as well as the types of documentary evidence required.
Verification of financial eligibility for children’s advice and assistance and ABWOR
This page covers how you should go about verifying that your client is eligible to receive children’s A&A or ABWOR based on the income they receive. It covers the kind of evidence you should see from employed clients; self-employed clients; and clients in receipt of benefits. It also sets out what you should do in cases where your client declared they have no source of income.
Verification of financial eligibility for children’s advice and assistance and ABWOR
Find out what you can do in cases where documentary evidence of financial eligibility is not immediately available, including a number of examples.
Increases in authorised expenditure
This page provides information on when increases in children’s cases are needed. It covers when increases may be needed in: an initial Children’s Hearing; at a criminal advice hearing; at an adoption advice hearing; in relation to Child Protection Orders and related hearings and Part 4 orders under the Age of Criminal Responsibility (Scotland) Act 2019. The sections set out the levels of increase generally available and the circumstances in which they may be needed.
Increases in authorised expenditure
This page provides information on increases for the use of counsel within children’s A&A or ABWOR. It covers the limited scenarios in which the use of counsel under A&A is likely to be permitted (Opinions and consultations); the factors SLAB considers when assessing increase requests for counsel’s Opinion (including for appeals); the use of senior counsel; whether an increase is available for counsel to draft court documents; and the use of counsel in ABWOR cases.
Increases in authorised expenditure
Find out about increases for attending Social Work Case Conferences, Child in Care Reviews, Adoption matching panels etc, and our assessment of these.
Assistance by Way of Representation for children’s proceedings
Find out when a templated increase in expenditure is available under ABWOR for 2011 Act cases including what work it covers.
Assistance by Way of Representation for children’s proceedings
Find out about the availability of ABWOR to relevant persons and deemed relevant persons in various 2011 Act proceedings, and who applies the mean/merits tests.
Assistance by Way of Representation for children’s proceedings
Section 25 of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 introduces rights of participation (‘participation rights’) in children’s hearings for certain individuals
Assistance by Way of Representation for children’s proceedings
This page provides guidance on the ‘effective participation’ test in ABWOR. It sets out the regulatory factors considered in ‘effective participation’ and how they are assessed. These include the complexity of the case; the nature of the legal issues involved; the ability of the person to consider or challenge documents or information, and to present their views in an effective manner. It also provides information on the availability of ABWOR where the client is not present.
Assistance by Way of Representation for children’s proceedings
This page includes information on when you need to apply for a fresh grant of ABWOR, and when you can continue to provide ABWOR for a hearing under an existing grant. It also sets out our position on whether fresh applications are needed for eighth working day hearings; interim compulsory supervision orders; and pre-Hearing panels.
Assistance by Way of Representation for children’s proceedings
View hypothetical examples of when you would make a fresh grant or application for ABWOR or where an increase request is sufficient for the next hearing.