Policies and decision-makers’ guidance (DMG) for clawback in Advice and Assistance published

We’ve published the next release of policies and decision-makers’ guidance (DMG) for clawback in Advice and Assistance as part of our GALA project.

The policies and guidance on our GALA website are intended primarily for our decision-makers for:

• assessing the factors we take into consideration in applications and accounts
• detailing the information we take into account and the decisions we take as a result of the information.

As part of the GALA project, our existing legal aid guidance for solicitors on the SLAB website is reviewed and updated, as appropriate.

It remains the primary legal aid reference material for solicitors and has links to published policy statements or decision-makers’ guidance, if you need that at any time.

What’s new?

The new policy statements and DMGs are available on the GALA website for the following in Advice and Assistance:

• Assessing property recovered or preserved – assessing property recovered or preserved for the purposes of clawback
• Grave hardship and distress – assessing hardship applications for a determination of grave hardship or distress on the part of the assisted person
• Unreasonable difficulty or delay – assessing hardship applications for a determination of unreasonable difficulty or delay for the solicitor
• Method of collecting a liability – the method of collecting a liability where a hardship application has been granted

The corresponding legal aid guidance for solicitors has also been updated.

More information

Please contact Sara Brown, Civil Finance Senior Specialist

T: 0131 240 1998

E: brownsa@slab.org.uk