Lawyers have reacted angrily after a funding scheme set up to help firms struggling due to the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in scores of solicitors receiving nothing.

The £9 million Legal Aid Resilience Fund was announced last year after defence solicitors protested against the lack of funding available to firms who had suffered “economic shock” due to the downturn in court work during lockdown.

However, after applying to the fund earlier this year, a large number of lawyers have been left disappointed after being awarded nothing.

Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has agreed to look at concerns about the funding criteria, with lawyers across the country prepared to take further protest action - including refusing to attend court - if the issue is not addressed.

Ian Moir, co-convenor of the Law Society of Scotland’s legal aid committee, said: “A very large number of firms have contacted me directly to express their dismay in having been rejected when they expected to qualify.

“One of the biggest problems is that it’s extremely unclear how the payment is calculated. You get a calculation based on the number of new grants that they think you will have, compared to the work that you’ve done in the past, and in many cases people are being told they’re better off despite the pandemic and the lack of business.

“Nobody is really clear how it is that they thought they were going to qualify for a significant grant, but the legal aid board think that they’ve actually made lots more money.

“To be fair to Humza, he has stepped in and is looking at what he can do to change the criteria of the fund so that it will deliver the help that was intended, because it’s looking highly unlikely to do that on the initial rejections.

“We’re giving him the chance to fix it, but if that doesn’t happen, there’s no doubt in my mind that people will start to take action.”

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In November last year, a number of bar associations either refused to attend court or limited the number of lawyers appearing in a bid to secure more financial support for the profession.

Since then. the Scottish Government has approved a 10 per cent increase in legal aid fees over the next two years, as well as funding for traineeships.

Applications for the resilience fund opened in February and over the last week several lawyers have reacted angrily to the decisions.

Julia McPartlin. president of Edinburgh Bar Association, said around half of her members did not receive anything and there are concerns about how the grants are being calculated.

“There seems to be a few issues with the way they’ve calculated who should and shouldn’t qualify,” she said. “I don’t know what the algorithm is, but it doesn’t make sense to us and there’s been a lot of disappointment.”

However, she added: “Humza Yousaf has said that he intended for the resilience fund to be distributed so we’ll take him at his word and continue to liaise with his department as to what’s gone wrong here. He genuinely seems to have assigned this money and what we need to do now is make sure that it’s distributed in a fair way.

“At the moment we want to engage and see if we can fix things, taking action is a last resort, but people are fed up, they’re showing up every day when there’s not always the greatest conditions in court, and this comes after years of under-funding, so people are getting to the end of their tether.

“It’s really important that we can fix this problem and get those funds out to people who need it.”

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A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “As well as agreeing a 10% uplift to legal aid over the next two years, the Scottish Government recently launched our Resilience Fund to support legal aid solicitors who had suffered a loss of legal aid income due to Covid-19. We committed to keep the Fund under review when it was established and we continue to do so.

“The Justice Secretary discussed the concerns raised by some in the legal profession with the Law Society over the weekend, and committed to work together to see how these concerns can best be addressed. Our priority remains to maintain and support the important role of Scotland’s legal profession as part of the Justice system as we emerge from the pandemic.”