What is the Current Scottish Legal Aid Policy? Legal aid in Scotland is the responsibility of the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB), an institutional body created by the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 (Scottish Legal Aid Board, 2016). The actions of SLAB are consistent and stable but the Scottish government decides the aims of legal aid policy and the Scottish Parliament can implement legislative changes to the policy (Edinburgh & Scottish Legal Aid Board, 2016). The Scottish Legal Aid Board regulates the distribution of financial aid for those who are engaged or need to engage in legal proceedings but have financial constraints. This includes the review of legal aid applications, fraud investigation, and distribution of aid (Edinburgh & Scottish
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The first major change to be implemented was the introduction of formal legal aid applications to the sheriff’s court and the Court of Session (Scottish Legal Aid Board, 2016). Previously, legal aid was only offered in the sheriff’s court. The new application process was handled by a legal committee who decided whether there was a legal basis for a case. Afterwards, the National Assistance Board decided whether the applicants met the financial qualifications for legal aid (Scottish Legal Aid Board, 2016). At the time, legal aid was free to anyone who made less than £156 a year. Although the act in question also requested that legal aid be provided for criminal cases, the 1949 act failed to provide that support (Scottish Legal Aid Board, …show more content…
This began a stream of policy change that carried on into the 21st century. John Kingdon’s multiple streams theory may be able to explain why this initial change came about. Kingdon argues that policy change can occur when there is a political problem that the change will remedy (a problem stream), an environment in which changing that policy is politically viable (a politics stream), and a viable policy solution to change to (a policy stream) (Kingdon, 2010). These three streams create a “window of opportunity” for a policy change to occur
The first major change to be implemented was the introduction of formal legal aid applications to the sheriff’s court and the Court of Session (Scottish Legal Aid Board, 2016). Previously, legal aid was only offered in the sheriff’s court. The new application process was handled by a legal committee who decided whether there was a legal basis for a case. Afterwards, the National Assistance Board decided whether the applicants met the financial qualifications for legal aid (Scottish Legal Aid Board, 2016). At the time, legal aid was free to anyone who made less than £156 a year. Although the act in question also requested that legal aid be provided for criminal cases, the 1949 act failed to provide that support (Scottish Legal Aid Board, …show more content…
This began a stream of policy change that carried on into the 21st century. John Kingdon’s multiple streams theory may be able to explain why this initial change came about. Kingdon argues that policy change can occur when there is a political problem that the change will remedy (a problem stream), an environment in which changing that policy is politically viable (a politics stream), and a viable policy solution to change to (a policy stream) (Kingdon, 2010). These three streams create a “window of opportunity” for a policy change to occur