Scotland's legal aid crisis may be 'unfixable', senior lawyers have warned, as they reject an SNP minister's claims they walked away from crucial reform talks.
Eva Comrie, specialising in family and child law, accused the Scottish Government of “not listening for a very long time”.
The Herald investigated concerns over access to justice in last week’s series Beyond Breaking Point: Scotland’s Legal Aid Crisis, which led on fears for the future.
It found dwindling solicitor numbers, with 911 registered legal aid practitioners in 2024 compared to 1,084 in 2020, a drop of 16%.
But there were also demographic issues, with data suggesting around a third could retire from the profession in the next decade.
Discussing the series on the Through a Scottish Prism podcast, Ms Comrie, Glasgow-based solicitor Ian Moir and Roddy Dunlop KC, the dean of the faculty of advocates, urged ministers to invest in the future of legal aid.
In an exclusive interview with The Herald, community safety minister Siobhian Brown denied there was a crisis in legal aid.
READ MORE:
- Beyond Breaking Point: Scotland's Legal Aid Crisis – all articles here
- Siobhian Brown urges lawyers to return to legal aid talks
- I spent a day in Europe’s busiest court — Here’s what I learned
- Legal Aid Crisis: Demographics point to criminal law 'wasteland'
She urged solicitors to get back “round the table”, adding they had “walked away” from previous talks.
Ms Comrie responded to Ms Browns’ remarks, telling the podcast: “Lawyers have always been keen to negotiate. I think the issue is that some of the lawyers and organisations are awaiting responses to correspondence issued several months ago.
“I think the problem is the government actually have not been listening for a very long time.”
In April, the Law Society of Scotland withdrew from a working group set up in 2022 aimed at securing a long-term solution to funding legal aid.
Mr Moir, co-convener of the Law Society’s legal aid committee, said solicitors had become aware there was no guarantee of money at the end of discussions.
“That was the point we saw there was little point in carrying on with that particular piece of work,” he added.
“But we made it plain that we were not walking away from speaking with the government.
“To suggest that we’re unwilling to come to the table isn’t true. We are, and always have been at the table. There was one piece of work that we walked away from because we were so frustrated at the lack of progress.”
Mr Moir also raised fears the current ‘crisis’ in legal aid may never be fixed if action isn’t taken soon.
“I’m finding it extremely difficult to be optimistic given the amount of years that have passed where we have been warning that we would end up where we are.
“Nothing has hit home to the government to realise that the longer you delay in fixing this and investing in this, the problem may not even be fixable.
READ MORE:
- 'Legal aid will fall over without trainee solicitor investment'
- Legal aid crisis leaving domestic abuse survivors without lawyers
- Scottish mum shares 'brutal' legal aid experience
- The data behind legal aid: What's access like in your area?
“If this can be fixed it can only be fixed with a trainee fund every year for a number of years.”
Meanwhile Mr Dunlop said he believed the Scottish minister was “listening to our concerns”.
But he said: “What I think she needs to do is apply more pressure to those who hold the purse strings.”
A solution to the problem lies with the traineeship fund first opened by the Scottish Government in 2021, experts have said.
The £1 million fund supported 40 new legal aid trainees, however, the scheme has not yet been renewed for future years.
Mr Moir urged the government to invest in the scheme for a committed number of years.
“It’s not as simple as throwing money at it,” he said. “But if they don’t throw money at it now, there will be even less people left.
“It’s very disheartening when those that are left are struggling their best to get things to work in court.”
Last week, community safety minister Ms Brown told The Herald the Scottish Government could not “magic up solicitors” and added there needed to be “some sort of underlying reform from within the profession”.
She said: “I know there’s a narrative that nothing’s been done in increasing money towards the legal aid profession, but since 2019 there have been four uplifts.
“There’s been £31 million given, £11 million of which was last year alone, to the legal profession, which was an increase of 25% over that period, which is a large increase.”
But she added: “Since then they’ve walked away from the project which was disappointing and I really encourage them to get back round the table because if we want reform moving forward, we all need to be working at it.”
The Scottish Government has been asked for additional comment.
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