CAS and the Scottish Association of Law Centres (SALC) submitted a joint letter to the Equality, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee to focus on the experiences and justice journeys of rights-holders due to our concern that they have not received the attention they deserve. 
We provided additional information, including updated data for 2024/25 from CAS, to ensure the Committee benefits from a comprehensive picture of the legal aid system as experienced by people whose access to justice depends on it.

We believe from the evidence submitted to the Committee, that across Scotland there is a real desire to address longstanding issues with our legal aid system. Across different stakeholders we see agreement that: 
• legal aid fees must be uplifted and reformed alongside structural reforms towards 
        - embedding rights-holders’ voices and needs within the legal aid system 
        - effectively monitoring and securing legal aid supply to meet need 
        - a more genuinely mixed delivery model to address longstanding barriers to people’s access to justice 
• the legal aid application processes should be simplified; 
• financial eligibility thresholds need to be reviewed to assure that our legal aid system ensures that nobody is excluded from accessing justice because of who they are or their inability to pay; 
• other elements of financial eligibility tests such as capital thresholds and contributions should be reviewed to ensure they do not act as barriers to accessing legal aid; 
• automatic (non-discretionary) waiver of financial eligibility tests for particularly vulnerable individuals.

Download the publication below.