Disability Assistance Regulations coming into force

The Disability Assistance for Working Age People (Consequential Amendments)(Scotland) Regulations 2022 come into force today.

These regulations amend the relevant Advice and Assistance, Civil and Children’s Regulations by adding:

– Adult Disability Payments (ADP) and
– Short Term Assistance Payments while the ADP award is under appeal

to the list of payments which can be disregarded from the assessment of an applicant’s disposable income or capital in all types of legal assistance.

Regulation 4 amends the Advice and Assistance (Scotland) Regulations 1996 by providing that:

• These payments are disregarded in the assessment of an applicant’s disposable capital and income in respect of all forms of advice and assistance
• This also excludes such payments from bearing fees and outlays when forming part of any recovered or preserved property in proceedings.

Regulation 8 amends the Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) Regulations 2002 by providing that:

• Adult Disability Payments, and Short Term Assistance Payments while the ADP award is under appeal are also disregarded in the assessment of an applicant’s disposable income
• Both payments are excluded from bearing fees and outlays when forming part of any recovered or preserved property in proceedings
• Child Disability Payments and Short Term Assistance Payments (in respect of Child Disability Payments) are also added to the list of payments exempt from bearing fees and outlays when forming part of recovered or preserved property in proceedings.

Regulation 16 amends the Children’s Legal Assistance (Scotland) Regulations 2013 by providing that:

• Adult Disability Payments, and Short Term Assistance Payments while the ADP award is under appeal are also to be regarded in the assessment of an applicant’s disposable income.

These payments have been added to the list of disregarded payments shown in the Advice & Assistance and Civil and Children’s Keycards.

In addition, we will also disregard these payments where we assess financial eligibility for Summary, Solemn and Criminal Appeals legal aid using the undue hardship test.

For further information, please contact:

Civil Legal aid: Cindy Morrice, Manager of Civil Finance – MorriceCi@slab.org.uk

Children’s Legal Aid: Wendy Dalgleish, Head of Civil and Children’s Legal Services – DalgleishWe@slab.org.uk

Criminal Legal Aid: Kingsley Thomas, Head of Criminal Legal Assistance – ThomasKi@slab.org.uk