The Scottish Government has been pressed to take urgent action on legal aid following a funding boost for the sector in England and Wales.
The UK Government announced plans for £135 million in additional legal aid funding on Tuesday following an independent review of the system.
The Law Society of Scotland is now calling for Scottish ministers to follow suit in a bid to resolve the mounting legal aid problem north of the border.
Lawyers have long been calling for a substantial increase in funding, with solicitors staging protest action at courts across the country in recent months.
The Scottish Government last week announced that it would provide a “significant increase” in fees, but this was quickly shot down by lawyers who said the “small uplift” barely covered the recent increase in inflation.
Following the Westminster funding announcement, Ian Moir, Law Society criminal legal aid convener, said: “The UK Government has recognised that legal aid in England and Wales needs significant additional resource. After a decade of underfunding, the Scottish Government needs to follow suit otherwise we risk deepening the access to justice crisis that is already affecting the most vulnerable in our society.
“The issues south of the border mirror those we currently face in Scotland.”
He added: “In Scotland, we are four years on from an independent review of legal aid, and almost a year on from a fee panel project that recommended further research. That research has yet to be commissioned, never mind concluded.
“Research isn’t needed. The generational underfunding of legal aid that has ravaged the network of legal support that people rely on is clear to us all.
“What is needed is a system of periodic review, so that we never again see fees left unchanged for decades, and urgent and significant funding to try to repair the damage to a broken system.”
The Scottish Government has previously said it provided a five per cent increase in legal aid last year, with a further 5% rise due to be delivered this year.
Ministers have also provided a £9 million fund to the profession in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a £1m traineeship fund.
A spokesperson said: “This amounts to a £20 million investment in legal aid since March 2021 in addition to a 3 per cent uplift across all legal aid fees in 2019.”
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