Opposition challenge silence on legal aid research
11 Jan 07
Executive accused of covering up bad news reported in Journal feature
Opposition MSPs have accused the Scottish Executive of covering up damning evidence that legal aid reforms have not worked, following publication in last month's Journal of the Law Society of Scotland of findings from research carried out for the Executive.
The research, into the fixed payment regime for summary criminal legal aid introduced in 1999, revealed that althoug the new scheme resulted in a short term drop in the total legal aid bill for such cases, the upward trend was quickly resumed.
Carried out by Cyrus Tata from the University of Strathclyde and Frank Stephen from the University of Manchester, the research concluded that the increase came about because lawyers were submitting more claims.
The authors state that one likely explanation for the figures is that before the fixed payment regime, solicitors may have simply absorbed the costs of ancillary work in the "main" case and not applied for fees for this separately.
Under the new regime, however, solicitors became more careful about what work they were doing under each legal aid certificate, and started making separate applications for work that previously they might have absorbed without bother to apply over. The authors comment that this is not an improper state of affairs, but arguably more correct and transparent than the previous practice.
Challenge
As reported in today's Scotsman, the SNP and the Conservatives have now challenged the Executive's failure to publish the full research findings.
Margaret Mitchell, the Tories' justice spokesperson, said the Executive had chosen to bury bad news, belying their claims to open and accountable government.
The SNP's Kenny MacAskill said the non-publication of the research was unacceptable and the Executive was covering up for the Legal Aid Board.
A spokesperson for the Executive said the researchers had been allowed to present their research at conferences and in journals and that it hoped to publish the full report very soon.A three-page summary of the research, which was completed early in 2005, was placed on the Executive's website last month.