Senior lawyers have warned the legal aid ‘crisis’ is worsening after a new report showed a 23% drop in the number of cases paid to solicitors since 2019-20.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) published its annual report for the 2023-24 financial year, urging the Scottish Government to undertake “significant reform” of the legal aid sector.

While the report showed the total cost of legal aid increased 12% on the previous year, to £151 million - 16% higher than the pre-pandemic year of 2019-20, the Law Society of Scotland has said the figures are “getting worse, not better”.

The figure is an increase of 11% on the £135.7 million paid in 2016-17, however Ian Moir, co-convener of the Law Society’s legal aid committee, said it is a “real terms” decrease of £25m.

The official report, which has been submitted to the Scottish Parliament for scrutiny, showed 176,000 grants of legal assistance were made in 2023-24, up by 9,200 on the previous year.

It covered civil, criminal and children’s cases with data showing more than £2m covered divorce cases, while £12m was spent on immigration and asylum legal aid, £15 million was spent on sexual offences criminal cases, while £4.4m dealt with murder or attempted murder.

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However, Mr Moir, who is also a legal aid practitioner in Glasgow with law firm Moir and Sweeney, raised concerns that the total number of cases paid to solicitors had fell significantly.

The report showed 134,900 cases were paid in 2023-24, down 23% from the 176,100 in 2019-20 and 29% from the 191,256 paid in 2016.

It is down just 1% on the 136,000 cases paid to solicitors in 2022-23.

Concerns have repeatedly been raised by the Law Society that the number of solicitors offering legal aid services is declining.

High profile lawyer Aamer Anwar announced his decision last month to withdraw from criminal legal aid cases amid the “decimation” of the system.

The Law Society said just 596 solicitor firms submitted at least one legal aid application in 2023-24, down from 621 firms in the previous year. However, SLAB said the number of solicitors actively involved in criminal legal assistance had remained “relatively stable”, at around 780 for the last four years.

Commenting on the annual report, Mr Moir said: “The figures in this annual report show the long-term deterioration in Scotland’s legal aid system is continuing. Read in context, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that this crisis is getting worse, not better.

“Scotland’s courts are busier than they’ve ever been. On that basis, the long-term fall in the number of cases being funded through legal aid points to a shortage of solicitors to do this work, not a fall in the number of people who need help.

“Significant investment is urgently required, and every day of delay makes it harder to reverse this decline. The Law Society of Scotland remains ready to work with the Scottish Government to identify and make the changes required.

“We need short-term and long-term action, to meet demand now and in the future. More needs to be done to attract young solicitors to work in this vital sector, and far more needs to be done to ensure that legal aid is a viable long-term career.”

Meanwhile, Colin Lancaster, chief executive of SLAB, said the growth in legal aid spend showed no sign of slowing, with payments for the first half of the current year up by 9% compared to the same period last year.

“We are reporting total expenditure of £151 million for 2023-24.

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“As we move into 2024-25, based on current and anticipated volumes and case costs, we are estimating that expenditure for 2024-25 could be around £171 million which would be the highest ever recorded.

“This represents a significant investment in legal aid and a substantial financial boost for the committed firms up and down the country who deliver this vital service.”

The data published on Wednesday also showed that the total grants made for legal aid in 2023-24 increased to 176,500, a 6% increase on the 166,800 in the previous year, but a 13% fall on the 202,300 recorded in 2019-20.

Mr Lancaster said that while the increased funding was to be welcomed it did not address the challenges for the existing legal aid system of adapting to a world not envisioned when it was created 40 years ago.

Calls for reform come after Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur warned of a “legal aid desert” emerging with rural communities like Orkney registering no private firms or solicitors on court duty plans.

The issues around reform centres on calls to developing a review mechanism for legal aid fees amid concerns the work is not viable financially for many solicitors.

The Law Society recently withdrew from the Scottish Government's legal aid remuneration project which was set up in 2022 to consider the future of legal aid fees.

In April, the law body expressed it had "lost confidence" in the Scottish Government project following a lack of progress in developing a review mechanism for fees.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Despite extremely challenging financial circumstances, the Scottish Government continues to meet all legal aid costs in full. The cost of providing legal assistance in 2023-24 increased by 12% on the previous year to £151 million.

“An £11 million package that increased fees for legal aid lawyers was implemented in April 2023, bringing the total additional funding to legal aid providers to £31 million since April 2021, and the number of active legal aid solicitors remains broadly similar in the years 2020-21 to 2023-24.”