New accounts assessment policies and guidance published

This update provides information about the first release of policies, decision-makers’ guidance (DMG) and new or revised legal aid guidance (LAG) on accounts assessment.

The publication is part of a release programme through our Guidance on the Administration of Legal Aid (GALA) project.

The GALA project is a rolling programme of work and we will publish policies and guidance about our decision-making as we complete them.

In October 2020 we launched a new framework of policy and guidance specifically developed to support our staff when making decisions on applications and accounts. So far we have published material on criminal and children’s applications. The accounts assessment release includes the first civil material.

One of the aims of the new documentation is to help you to understand how we make our decisions.

We review and update the Legal Aid Guidance for solicitors on our website as part of the process of producing the policy statements and decision-makers’ guidance.

Whenever we publish new policy statements and DMG there will be a sidebar with links to the relevant Legal Aid Guidance for solicitors (see red box in image below).

The new policy statements and DMG are available for following the accounts subject matters:

• Additional fees
• Exceptional case status
• Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 & the Criminal Legal Aid and Advice and Assistance (Counter-Terrorism and Border Security) (Scotland) Regulations 2021
• Duty solicitor scheme
• Identification Parades
• Spoken language interpreting and translation services

For more information about this update or the GALA project

Please contact Marie-Louise Fox, Director of Strategic Development

E: FoxMa@slab.org.uk