Chamber and committees

As I set out in my letter to the committee last week, the expansion of the civil online system in the sheriff court is one example of something that might have to be curtailed, essential improvements to the Office of the Public Guardian’s systems is another, and work to develop a trauma-informed domestic abuse court is a third. Beyond the examples that I mentioned in my letter, there is simply the risk of increasing delays, which would be to the detriment of all those involved in the court system, but it would be up to the SCTS to decide where to make cuts if it did not get the £4 million a year.

I will bring in Walter in a moment on inflation rates, because he will be able to go over the history of the past five years. The money to fund the court system is needed due to inflationary pressures over the past couple of years. Access for the most vulnerable who need justice is covered by the exemptions and by legal aid. When you seek litigation, the legal fees are usually a lot higher than the court fees. For example, solicitors’ rates in Scotland, depending on the type of work and the experience, start at £125 per hour and go up to anything over £300 per hour.

No. SCTS does not track who is litigating in a form that would allow us to provide those specific statistics. However, we can say that a significant proportion of the litigation is conducted by large organisations from the public and private sectors. Specifically, the insurance industry is a major litigant in the field of personal injury. Thanks to qualified one-way costs shifting, it meets the expenses of both the parties in the large majority of cases.

I urge committee members to support these SSIs to fund the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service. Budgetary pressures mean that we cannot ignore the impact of inflation over the past couple of years.

I take on board the points that members have made, and I will come to the matter of legal aid, but access to justice is protected by legal aid and court fees exemptions. As we know, court fees are generally a very small part of the cost of a legal action. Legal advice is far more expensive and a bigger issue.

The Scottish Government totally acknowledges the importance of access to justice and the reform of the legal aid system. The Scottish Government has taken significant steps to assist legal aid providers, which has led to an increase in legal aid fees of 25 per cent since 2019.

As I said previously to Maggie Chapman, the number of legal aid solicitors can fluctuate for a variety of reasons, and the issue of solicitor availability is being explored by the Scottish Legal Aid Board. It is currently undertaking a comprehensive analysis that will look in detail at legal aid activity at geographical level and subject matter level. I will continue to work with the legal profession and others to identify measures to improve Scotland’s legal aid system.

If the instruments are agreed to today, as we move forward to the next consultation in 2026, I would be happy to commit to a further consultation that would have the public’s interests at heart as part of the next fees review.

Thank you, convener, and good morning to the committee. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that courts are funded to deliver a civil justice system that is accessible, affordable and provides a high-quality service to those who have cause to use it. Beyond that overriding objective, the Scottish Government believes that the fees that are charged to court users should recover the cost to public funds of providing those services when that can be done while protecting access to justice. That means that those who make use of the services of the courts should meet, or contribute towards, the associated cost to the public purse, when they can afford to do so.

A generous system of legal aid and court fee exemptions is the most important means by which access to justice is protected. Over recent years, we have enhanced such protections. For example, people who apply for domestic abuse interdicts or exclusion orders are automatically exempt from paying court fees, and, in 2022, people with environmental cases within the meaning of the Aarhus convention were exempted from paying court fees in the Court of Session. I want to go further in the future, when resources allow.

The instruments that are before the committee establish statutory fee-charging regimes, which the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service administers, so the Scottish Government works very closely with the SCTS on its fees policy. Court fees have generally been reviewed every three years, with the latest full round being implemented in 2022. We do not increase fees annually in line with inflation, but we need to increase them when it is necessary to reflect increased costs. That is why the SSIs are before the committee today.

The wider context of pressure on public finances that has been brought about by significant reductions to the funding that Scotland receives from the UK Government, as well as the inflationary pressures that we are all well aware of, means that it is unsustainable not to consider court fees increasing. As a result of high inflation and increased costs falling on the SCTS, the rate of recovery dropped significantly to 57 per cent in 2023-24.

In my letter to the committee, I set out reasons why the SSIs are necessary and the potential impact on the SCTS should it not receive the additional funding that is being sought through court fees. The expansion of the civil online system in the sheriff court is one example of something that might have to be curtailed, essential improvements to the Office of the Public Guardian’s systems is another, and work to develop a trauma-informed domestic abuse court is a third. Beyond the examples that I mentioned in my letter, there is simply the risk of increasing delays, which would be to the detriment of all those involved in the court system, as a result of a shortfall in projected income of about £4 million per year.

We cannot ignore the fact that we face financial challenges, and we have sought to balance those challenges against maintaining a robust £141.3 million fund for legal aid and court fee exemptions to protect people who could not otherwise afford access to justice.

I urge the committee to pass the SSIs to ensure that courts get the increased fees that they need to reflect inflationary rises and can continue their work in providing justice to those who seek it.

Yes. I want to review them in the future because of inflationary pressures. We cannot address that issue at the moment, but we will in the future.

We know with the inflation over the past couple of years that that figure has gone to 57 per cent in the past year. I do not know the history going back to the figure that you mention, but I will bring in Walter Drummond-Murray, because he will know the history and be able to speak to that.

I have no further comments to make.

Absolutely. It is right that the defender, whoever they are, meets the costs of the award. For catastrophic injury, regardless of whether the defender is a business or is publicly funded, it is important to note that, in cases where they are not properly compensated and they face the prospect of their money running out, pursuers will inevitably have to fall back on the NHS and other public social and care services, which places a burden on those services during their lifetime. That surely cannot be the right outcome.

The use of periodical payment orders can, of course, mitigate the impact of the discount rate. We are working to ensure that those provisions come into force so that the courts in Scotland may, for the first time, impose a periodical payment order, which would be helpful for bodies such as the NHS, which could be deemed to secure funding for the purposes of those provisions that relate to periodical payment orders.

I do not know whether Michael Paparakis or Scott Matheson have anything further to add to that.

Good morning, convener and committee. The two Scottish statutory instruments that you are considering are routine. They concern the application of the public sector equality duty and the Scotland-specific equality duties to two public authorities: Community Justice Scotland and the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland.

The office of the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland was established by legislation that was passed by the Parliament in September last year and came into effect at the start of this month. That legislation was introduced in response to a recommendation of the independent medicines and medical devices safety review, which followed a number of high-profile instances in which harm resulted from healthcare professionals not heeding concerns that were raised by patients about the safety of medical interventions.

The commissioner will be an independent public advocate for patients on issues of safety. They will champion the value of listening to patients and holding organisations to account for their responsibility to take patients’ concerns seriously. They will bring together evidence of patients’ experiences and concerns with wider patient safety data and use that to identify potential systemic patient safety issues. They will have powers to require information from healthcare organisations and to investigate patients’ safety concerns where they feel that there is a need to do so. I understand that the Parliament is currently in the process of recruiting the first commissioner.

Community Justice Scotland is a national body for community justice in Scotland. It was established in April 2017, when the new model for community justice was introduced. Community Justice Scotland’s aim is to promote and advance the national strategy for community justice, in order to create a more robust and effective community justice system based on local planning and delivery by a range of statutory and other partners, supported and guided by national leadership and oversight. It also monitors, promotes and supports improvement in performance in the provision of community justice across Scotland.

The Equality Act 2010 (Specification of Public Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2024 will add Community Justice Scotland and the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland to the list of public authorities that are required to comply with the public sector equality duty. That duty requires public authorities, when exercising their functions, to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation; the need to advance equality of opportunity; and the need to foster good relations between persons who share protected characteristics and persons who do not.

The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2024 will apply the Scotland-specific equality duties by adding the bodies to the Equality Act 2010 (Specific) (Duties) Scotland Regulation 2012. Those regulations will, for example, require Community Justice Scotland and the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland to publish equality outcomes and report on progress towards achieving those outcomes; report on mainstreaming equality; and publish information on the gender pay gap and equal pay.

With regard to Community Justice Scotland, it is worth noting that, although the organisation has existed for a number of years, equality legislation was not updated when it was first established. The Equality and Human Rights Commission subsequently recommended that appropriate changes be made to include Community Justice Scotland. The Scottish Government agrees with that recommendation, and this legislation will ensure that Community Justice Scotland is fully subject to the provisions therein. The committee might wish to note, however, that, up to this point, Community Justice Scotland has considered itself to be under the general public sector equality duty from the outset, and it has acted accordingly.

In summary, I recognise the importance of ensuring that our public authorities have regard to their equality duties when exercising any functions. I consider these SSIs to be the best approach to ensure that that happens.

I hope that that provides a useful overview. I will be happy to take any questions that the committee might have.