Communication with Scottish Legal Aid Board19

Contents

SectionPage

Executive Summary3

Introduction5

Overall Experience13

From information to outcome14

Communication with Scottish Legal Aid Board19

Satisfaction with solicitor26

Equality of Experience34

Conclusion and next steps37

Executive Summary

Background

The Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) is a non-departmental public body responsible for managing legal aid in Scotland. Applications for legal aid are made on behalf of applicants by their solicitor, and SLAB has little direct contact with applicants.

The main aim of the 2013 civil applicants’ survey was to seek the views of legal aid applicants and recipients of advice & assistance on their experiences of civil legal assistance. The research excluded those who used a Civil Legal Assistance Office solicitor, since SLAB has a separate programme of research for this.

The research used a structured questionnaire (developed by SLAB). Professional fieldworkers undertook telephone interviews of people who had had advice & assistance, applied for legal aid or had dealings with SLAB’s Treasury Department. A total of 765 people took part in the research (the same as in 2009, as SLAB had specified).

Overview

Most respondents (83%) felt that their situation would have been worse without legal aid and were satisfied on key measures around using and understanding legal aid and the legal system. Amongst those who gave a view, 84% were satisfied or neutral regarding ‘overall experience of the full legal process’, 95% with ‘ease of starting to use legal aid’ and 90% with ‘ease of understanding of the whole legal aid system’.

Information gathering & access to legal help

The majority of respondents (88%) went to a private solicitor first for information on their problem, with 5% going first to a Citizen’s Advice Bureau. These results are very similar to those in 2009 and 2007. Those with non-family cases were more likely to contact a CAB first (10% did so), compared with 4% of those with family cases.

Although most respondents had no problems finding a legal aid solicitor, 5% of respondents (41 people) said that they had had problems. This is identical to 2009, and a slight improvement on 2007 when 8% said they had problems.

Views on legal aid processes

Most of those who had direct contact with SLAB were satisfied or neutral with how long it took to get an answer (83%), whether things were explained clearly (89%) and that the response answered their question (85%). There is no comparable data from earlier surveys.

Of those who had to pay a financial contribution during the course of their case, 83% were satisfied or neutral with how clearly SLAB had explained what they might have to pay. This is a very similar finding to the 2009 survey.

Views on their Solicitor

Satisfaction with the solicitor and various aspects of the solicitor service is high, and has not changed significantly since the previous surveys (where comparisons are available).

Overall satisfaction with their solicitor is generally high, with 91% respondents satisfied or neutral with the service provided so far. When asked whether they would use the same solicitor again most people (83%) said that they would. Responses to both these questions were very similar to those received in 2009.

People who said they were given written information by their solicitor at their first meeting were significantly more likely to be satisfied with their solicitor than those who said they had not been given this. For instance, overall satisfaction with their solicitor was 92% amongst those who recalled having received information, compared with 69% amongst those who did not.

Demographics

The research explored whether respondents felt that anything to do with their demographic characteristics had made it more difficult for them to access legal aid. The characteristics covered were: disability, age, ethnic group, religious affiliation, gender, gender identity and sexual identity.

The responses to the demographic questions suggest that very few respondents felt that their membership of a particular demographic group made it more difficult for them to access legal aid. Amongst those who said they had a limiting long-standing illness, health problem or disability, 10% (18 people) thought that this had made it difficult to access legal aid. Where this was expanded on, the difficulty was most commonly attributed to ‘physical access (e.g. to buildings or places)’ (3 responses) or ‘access to information’ (e.g. problems with reading, writing or comprehension) (3 responses). Fewer than 0.5% of respondents thought that they had had difficulty accessing legal aid due to membership of any other demographic group.

Introduction

This section introduces the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB), outlines the research aims of the civil applicants’ survey and describes the methodology selected for this research, as well as discussing ethical issues around the work.

Background

The Scottish Legal Aid Board

The Scottish Legal Aid Board is a non-departmental public body responsible for managing legal aid in Scotland.

The purpose of SLAB is to provide access to justice for those people who are unable to afford to pay for it on their own. To support this SLAB has four strategic aims:

• To facilitate access to a range of quality assured legal help in Scotland, when and where it is needed.
• To provide access to service providers that deliver services in ways that benefit the justice system.
• To obtain best value for the taxpayer from legal aid expenditure.
• To contribute to an efficient justice system in Scotland by providing an efficient legal aid system.

Consulting with applicants, assisted persons and others with an interest in legal aid and access to justice is fundamental to SLAB’s approach to delivering access to justice, and supports the Scottish Government in delivering its National Outcomes.

In line with these aims, SLAB undertakes a range of different research activities (both internally and using external partners) to inform policy development, implementation and evaluation. The applicant survey is an important project within the overall research programme.

Legal Aid

Legal aid allows people who would otherwise not be able to afford it, to get help for their legal problems. There are two main types of help funded by legal aid: advice and assistance (A&A) and legal aid. Together these are called legal assistance. Legal assistance is available for both civil and criminal problems. This research focusses on civil legal assistance, research on criminal legal assistance was undertaken in 2011 and 2012.

Advice and assistance covers a wide range of matters, so long as they are matters of Scots law. It pays for advice from a solicitor but, apart from a few exceptions under assistance by way of representation (ABWOR), it will not cover 'representation' – that is, putting the case in court.

Legal aid provides funding for a solicitor to put the case in court and some tribunals. It covers the preparation work, as well as the hearing itself, and can provide funding for advocates, experts and other costs (cases often begin with advice and assistance, and legal aid may be the next step if necessary).

In the process of providing legal assistance SLAB has very little or no direct contact with most applicants. For those assisted under A&A, SLAB has no direct contact. The solicitor assesses eligibility and provides advice, before intimating this to SLAB for payment. The chart overleaf illustrates this.

Channels of communication in the Advice & Assistance process

SLAB typically does not have direct contact with those who apply for civil legal aid. Their solicitor applies, and SLAB will liaise with the solicitor about the application. The applicant is kept informed about progress and SLAB’s decisions on their civil legal aid application. The exceptions are: applicants who require a detailed financial assessment of eligibility (Form 2), SLAB may contact them directly about this and; those who are required to make a financial payment towards the cost of their legal aid. Those who contribute financially will have contact with SLAB’s Treasury Department. The chart below illustrates communication channels in an application for civil legal aid.

Channels of communication in the civil legal aid application process

The decision on whether an application for legal assistance is granted is based on the merits of their case and the financial circumstances of the applicant. Eligibility for advice & assistance is assessed by the applicant’s solicitor, whilst applications for civil legal aid are assessed by the Board.

The financial assessment of eligibility for civil legal aid is called the ‘means test’. Depending on their financial situation applicants will be asked by their solicitor to fill in either a Financial Form 1 or a Financial Form 2. The Financial Form 1 is for those who receive income support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment Support Allowance, payments from the national asylum support service or who are applying on behalf of a child. The Financial Form 2 is for all other applicants for civil legal aid.

Depending on their circumstances at the time of application, or review, applicants can either be refused legal aid (if it appears that they can afford to pay for legal aid themselves), granted legal aid with a financial contribution or granted with no contribution. Those who are granted legal aid with an income based contribution will usually have to pay a set amount monthly towards it. If they miss their first payment their legal aid will be stopped (terminated). If an applicant misses a monthly payment towards their contribution they are classified as having gone into arrears. SLAB’s Treasury Department is responsible for collecting legal aid debt, and communicating with applicants about debt related issues. Failure to pay can lead to withdrawal of legal aid but SLAB can, and does, reassess circumstances and amounts to be paid.

People who have won or kept money or property as a result of their legally aided civil case may also be due to repay some or all of the costs of their case, if they can afford to. This can apply to those who have already paid a financial contribution, as well as those who have not been asked to. SLAB follows set guidelines in calculating whether people can afford to repay some or all of the cost of their case. The money that people are asked to pay from money or property won or kept through their case is called ‘clawback’.

People who win their legally-aided case may also have part or all of the costs of the case paid for by their opponent. The court may order this, or the winning party can ask their opponent to do so.

Further information on legal aid is available on SLAB’s website

Methodology

Research Aims

The main aim of the 2013 civil applicants’ survey was to seek the views of legal aid applicants and recipients of advice & assistance on their experience of civil legal assistance. Specifically the research aimed to:

• Measure knowledge of, and levels of satisfaction with, SLAB, the profession, and the legal aid system as a whole
• Explore how applicants try to resolve their legal problems (advice seeking behaviour)
• Identify any problems in accessing justice (i.e. problems in accessing a solicitor, types of cases, distance, representation)
• Identify how and where the legal aid system can be improved
• Identify any differences in opinion between groups of applicants
• Provide comparisons with previous applicant surveys to give an indication of changing views over time.

Method

The 2013 civil applicants’ survey follows on from previous research with applicants. A telephone survey was chosen as the method, since this was successful in the past (2009 and 2007). This required specialist equipment and fieldwork resource not available in-house and was contracted out to Progressive Partnership, a specialist research company. This helps to assure respondents that the research is independent of SLAB which can be important in getting a good response rate.

The survey questionnaire was developed in-house. It was based on that used in 2009. However various questions were added, removed and changed, and there were also some alterations to the structure of the questionnaire. Input to the questionnaire was received from the Project Board, as well as from individual managers and directors subsequent to this. A script for introducing the survey, and to be used at other stages throughout the interview, was provided to the contractor alongside the questionnaire, along with a Research Briefing sheet to help answer questions that respondents may have had about the research.

There are obviously limitations with any research work. For this project, one of the main limitations is that only those with a telephone could be contacted to take part. This means that the views of those without a telephone were not collected. According to a 2012 Ofcom report , 85% of individuals in Scotland have a mobile phone and 82% of households a landline. There will be some overlap with these groups; some households will have mobile phone but no landline and vice versa. The decision to use telephone surveys was made based on past experience, and was made as it has been demonstrated to be the most effective way of getting large amounts of information from enough respondents to enable analysis.

In 2013 there was a reduced budget for the work compared with 2009, however efficiencies were achieved by taking more work in-house (primarily analysis and report writing) and combining the commission with that for the civil solicitors survey. This meant we were able to achieve the same number of interviews and ask a similar number of questions, as was achieved in 2009. Doing the analysis in-house also meant we were able to be more responsive and speedy in asking and answering questions about the results, since we had direct access to the data.

Sampling strategy & fieldwork.

The sample for this survey was taken from records held by SLAB. Cases were selected because they either had advice & assistance, applied for legal aid or had dealings with SLAB’s Treasury Department during a particular timeframe. During, or outwith, this time they may also have seen a solicitor (including privately) about the same or another problem, or applied for criminal legal assistance.

The sampling strategy was broadly in line with that used in 2009, in order to facilitate comparability over time. However for 2013 we also included an additional sample of applicants who had been granted legal aid with a financial contribution. In 2009 the Treasury sample represented this group. In 2013 we felt that the Treasury sample would be able to tell us about their experiences with paying towards their legal aid, but that they might have difficulties recollecting back to the early stages of their case, since this could have been two or more years ago. The ‘granted with a contribution’ sample would be better able to recall their experiences of finding a solicitor and accessing legal aid. Although some of this group might have had dealings with our Treasury Department, only the Treasury sample were asked the Treasury questions in the survey.

There were a number of blanket exclusions, where SLAB considered it would be inappropriate to make contact. This comprised those aged under 17, as well as certain case types, including mental health and adults with incapacity. This was in line with the sample data in the previous survey. However this data was not always available for the Treasury sample. Given the small size of the sample it was decided to proceed without this assurance.

This sample was provided to the contractors to allow them to undertake telephone interviews. The data that was eventually provided consisted of three main samples: A&A; civil legal aid applications & Treasury.

The civil legal aid applications sample was made up of the following sub-samples:

• Abandoned – the application has been abandoned during the process i.e. an initial application was made, but the further information that is needed to progress the application has not been provided.
• Refused – this group of applicants have been refused legal aid either because they did not meet the financial eligibility criteria, there was no legal basis for their case, financial help was available elsewhere or it was not deemed reasonable to grant legal aid.
• Granted legal aid and pay no financial contribution based on means towards their legal aid
• Granted legal aid and pay a financial contribution based on means towards their legal aid.

The five subsamples for the Treasury dataset were:

• No arrears – these applicants had not been in arrears on their financial contribution in the timeframe that was used to take data from our system. This does not however mean that they have never been in arrears, either before or after this time.
• Arrears – these applicants have gone into arrears with the regular payments of their financial contribution.
• Legal aid terminated –by SLAB (applicant had not paid the first instalment on their contribution),
• Legal aid terminated - because the applicant had decided not to proceed.
• Clawback – these are cases where the case has concluded, money / property has been won or kept, and an amount of this is due to SLAB to help cover the cost of the case. The assisted person will deal with the Treasury Department over this.

Table 1 overleaf shows how the sample was broken down. The quota number of interviews is the number of interviews that Progressive were asked to try and complete for each sub sample. Some of these we were aware would be very difficult to achieve, due to the small sample size available (for example, those terminated for non payment of their first instalment). The quotas for civil legal aid are loosely based on proportion of application outcomes. The figure of 765 was selected since this was what was achieved in 2009. For the Treasury sample they take into account the prevalence of each sub category, as provided. Those with clawback cases may or may not have also had a financial contribution based on income/capital on their case and this may, or may not, have been in arrears at some stage.