News In Focus
9 April 2009
Commission cuts budget but Society not satisfied
The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission laid its budget for 2009-10 before the Scottish Parliament yesterday, to a reaction of disappointment from the Law Society of Scotland.
The Commission's final budget for its first nine months of operation, to 30 June 2009, has come down by more than a third, from £3.49m to £2.11m, with a projected carry-forward of £1.4m to the next financial year. Taken with the projected spend for next year, this will result in the full year equivalent levy for solicitors three or more years qualified coming down from an annualised £409 this year (solicitors actually paid £307 to cover nine months) to £275.
More recently qualified solicitors will pay £138, and in-house lawyers £91 – a concession also extended this year to those practising outside Scotland. The levy for advocates will be £223.
Decision fees double
For cases brought to the Commission, the £200 mediation fee has been dropped in order to encourage early settlement, but fees for Commission determinations will double, with a top rate of £2,000 for a third or subsequent formal Commission decision on a complaint.
SLCC Chair Jane Irvine commented: “The Board of the SLCC carefully considered the representations made by the professional organisations and a number of amendments have been incorporated into the Commission’s final budget.
“We are fully aware of the repercussions of the economic downturn and the impact it has had upon the legal profession. Consequently, the cost of SLCC recruitment has been reduced from £90,000 to £60,000 which now takes into account the probability of an increased number of high-calibre candidates being available."
Cuts had also been made to the special projects and research budget, and to projections of members' expenses.
Call for salary freeze
However the reductions failed to satisfy the Law Society of Scotland, which said it was "disappointed in" the budget for 2009-10.
While recognising that cuts in the levy rates had been made, and welcoming the removal of the mediation charge, the Society claimed that further reductions should have been made to the budget.
Chief Executive Lorna Jack said: "The Society has structured its budget for this year to reflect the impact the recession is having on its members. We believe the SLCC should have done likewise and budgeted in order to reduce levy rates and help ease the financial burden on solicitors in the current climate.
She added: "We think SLCC’s level of reserves is unnecessarily high given the nature of the organisation, and proposals for salary increases are inappropriate at a time when many organisations, including the Society, have implemented a salary freeze for 2009-10.
"The Society also expressed concern over the doubling of the case levies which can be imposed on solicitors. We are fully aware of the ‘polluter pays’ principle which underpins these charges but, as no cases have progressed through the full process yet, there is no evidence to justify such a big increase."
Ms Jack said the Society would continue to scrutinise the Commission's annual budgets on behalf of the profession, and encourage the SLCC to review case levy charges when a sufficient number had gone through the process.