Legal Aid Payment Review Panel: report to the Minister for Community Safety

Annex B

Meetings

Attendance March 2019 – January 2020

Attendance has varied throughout the year, with other work commitments being the main cause of absences. Apologies for each meeting set out below. The black boxes indicate non-attendance. Professor Mike Danson joined the Panel in October, and Gillian Fyfe in June.

Payment Panel Advisory Group Attendance

Name	March	June	July	Sept	Oct	Nov	Jan
	Professor Frank Stephen	x	x	n/a	n/a	x	x	x
Professor Graeme Roy	x	n/a	x	x	n/a	n/a	n/a
Professor Mike Danson					x	n/a	x
Ian Moir	x	x	x	x	n/a	x	x
Mark Thorley	n/a	x	n/a	x	n/a	x	x
Ross Yuill	x	x	n/a	x	n/a	n/a	n/a
Ronaldo Renucci QC	n/a	x	x	n/a	n/a	x	n/a
Ruth Innes QC	x	x	x	x	x	x	n/a
Paul Brown	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Raymond McMenamin	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
Gillian Fyfe		x	x	x	x	x	n/a
Colin Lancaster	x	x	x	x	x	x	x

Meeting Breakdown – Agenda/Papers

March 2019 (1^st meeting)

Remit, terms of reference and expected outcomes.

Presentations

1) JAS – Trends in crime and court volumes.

2) SLAB – Payment framework of publicly funded legal assistance.

3) LSS – Legal aid fees.

4) FoA – Current structures for criminal and civil law from a faculty perspective.

5) Society of Solicitor Advocates – Overview of structures from a Solicitor Advocate perspective.

6) Scottish Association of Law Centres – Expert advisory structures in other jurisdictions.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/legal-aid-payment-advisory-panel-minutes-march-2019/

June 2019 (2^nd meeting)

Presentations

1) Professor Alan Paterson on legal assistance in international jurisdictions.

2) Fiona Rutherford on legal assistance in other jurisdictions within the UK.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/legal-aid-payment-advisory-panel-minutes-june-2019/

July 2019 (3rd meeting)

Presentations

1) Neil Robertson, Primary Care, on GP funding.

2) David Notman, Primary Care and Dental services, on the NHS Dental Payment System.

Priorities for the next meeting – reflect on the specific questions that the two models ad information have raised.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/legal-aid-payment-advisory-panel-minutes-july-2019/

September 6^th 2019 (4th meeting)

1) Legal Aid Expenditure – Recent trends and discussions by Steven Ing, Economic Advisor.

2) Group discussion – The benefits of bringing in an external challenged to give further analytical feedback to the discussions. It was agreed that Professor Mike Danson would be invited to attend future meetings.

3) Discussions for the next meeting – Contracting, grant funding, The Faculty of Advocates, bonus and differential reward and specialisation.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/legal-aid-payment-advisory-panel-minutes-september-2019/

October 4^th 2019 – (5^th meeting)

1) Presentation on research undertaken by LSS/Alan McCreadie: Ian Moir. This paper explored research in connection with inflationary based increases to fees.

2) Paper on COPFS: Shona Urquhart (SG) and JAS. This paper explored the differences in funding costs associated with the prosecution and defence of criminal law.

3) Paper on contracting: SLAB. This paper was circulated immediately prior to the meeting, it was spoken to by SLAB but Panel members were to reflect and discuss in more detail at the next meeting.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/legal-aid-payment-advisory-panel-minutes-october-2019/

November 2019 (6th meeting)

1) Reflections from Economist Panel Members

2) SLAB: Segmentation Data/Summary - Matt Taylor provided the panel with descriptive paper on segmentation data. (SLAB)

3) SLAB’s Contracting Paper – Speak to SLAB

https://www.gov.scot/publications/legal-aid-payment-advisory-panel-minutes-november-2019/

January 2020 (7^th meeting)

1) Scottish Government Paper - paper reflected on the presentations to and discussions by the panel to date, and brought these together with reference to the remit and objectives of the Panel. It set out potential findings and recommendations that the group may include in its report to Ministers. The final meeting will be held in March. This would allow the panel a sufficient period of time to pull together work for comments/revision for discussion at this meeting.

1a) Paper Discussion

The purpose of the paper was to reflect on ground covered in the meetings so far and how the outcomes might be captured in making recommendations to the Minister.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/legal-aid-payment-advisory-panel-minutes-january-2020/

March 2021 (8^th meeting)

1) Reflections on draft report and finalising the recommendations and report to the Minister.