The Scottish Government

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Sue Morris, Patsy Richards, Eddie Richards and Claire Lightowler
ISBN 0 7559 2918 7 (Web only publication)
This document is also available in pdf format (120k)

This report describes the evaluation of the in-court advice pilots currently funded by the Scottish Executive in 5 of the 49 sheriff courts across Scotland: Aberdeen, Airdrie, Dundee, Hamilton and Kilmarnock. The pilots are intended to extend access to civil justice for people without legal representation in certain legal proceedings: small claims cases, and heritable and debt cases in summary cause procedure.

Key Findings

• In-court advice services were seen to be uniquely placed within the court house, particularly able to meet unmet legal need for people involved in court proceedings.
• Demand for the services is high, and current workloads are becoming more difficult for in-court advisers to manage across the pilots. However, potentially unmet needs for the services remain.
• High levels of satisfaction with the service are evident across clients, court staff, sheriffs, and local agencies.
• The pilot clients are largely local authority tenants, and housing cases involving debt and other financial and social problems, such as health and family problems, are a key feature of the service. Clients are most likely to contact the adviser in person, many via self-referral or referral from court staff or sheriffs.
• Summary procedure work dominates, and there are substantial case loads in small claims. Some work in ordinary procedure is being undertaken across the pilots.
• Forms of assistance used by advisers are difficult to analyse due to the pilot data collecting strategy. Further investigation is required to explore the balance of assistance in each service, an important aspect for early intervention in cases.
• The advisers make limited use of onward referrals. More than one contact with the adviser is common, and repeat consultations increase workload by over 80% across the pilots.
• The 5 pilot in-court adviser ( ICA) services are largely meeting their aims and objectives, and while advisers are generally fitting well into courts and with local agencies, some issues have arisen both locally, and more widely.
• The key issues emerging from the evaluation of the current pilots concern accommodation (including health and safety); support staff for the advisers; adviser qualifications and training; early intervention in cases; further expansion of the services; and models of service provision. The full research report makes 12 recommendations to address these, including extending the services.

Introduction

In-court advice pilots are currently funded by the Scottish Executive in 5 of the 49 sheriff courts across Scotland: Aberdeen, Airdrie, Dundee, Hamilton and Kilmarnock. The pilots' main aims are:

• increasing the number of clients seeking advice and assistance;
• increasing client confidence in court proceedings;
• increasing the effectiveness of court hearings;
• increasing general efficiency of the court system;
• decreasing the number of decrees granted in absence of the defender.

The pilots also aim to increase integration of legal advice and service provision by establishing strong relationships among local advice and legal service providers; and to provide assistance to eligible unrepresented people as early as possible.

The evaluation of the pilots investigated whether they were meeting their aims and objectives and whether the service could be developed to increase effectiveness.

The evaluation was undertaken between May and October 2005, using a variety of methods to gather information: a questionnaire survey of clients; interviews with the advisers, their managers, court staff, sheriffs and a range of key interest groups; a survey of agencies with a wider interest in the pilots; analysis of pilot statistics; and a literature review.

Case types and workloads

The 5 pilots have recorded dealing with some 2,000 new cases since they began operation early in 2004. These resulted in a total of over 3,200 contacts with clients in 4 of the 5 pilots (Dundee recorded new cases only), showing high demand for the services. The evaluation examined data collected by the advisers over the entire period, restricting some analyses to the 12-month period June 2004-July 2005, when most data returns were complete.

The pilots assisted people in most civil procedures. The majority of people who contacted an adviser were involved in summary procedure (67% of new cases recorded). Small claims procedure also formed a substantial amount of ICA work (22% of all new cases), and 8% of cases were in ordinary procedure.

Clients were primarily involved in housing arrears (60% of new cases recorded), with a further 20% involved in debt or other heritable cases. Local authority tenants formed over half of all new clients. Advisers indicated that housing cases often involved debt and other money or social problems, such as health and family problems, reflecting findings of previous research. ¹ There was general recognition from all interests that the people being helped by ICA services often faced very difficult personal circumstances.

People were most likely to contact an adviser in person (63% of all contacts made), and 27% of new clients had gone to the ICA service on their own initiative. This highlights the importance of ICA promotion and visibility in the court house. 16% of new clients had been referred from a local Citizen's Advice Bureau ( CAB), and others contacted the service on referral from the sheriff clerk or their office (15%). Other people saw the adviser after referral from a local authority (17%), a solicitor (2%), or the sheriff hearing their case (3%). This shows that the ICA service is recognised across many agencies as an important aspect of local legal service provision.

1. Genn, H. (1999) Paths to Justice, Oxford: Hart Publishing

Services Offered

The majority of clients contacting the services were given assistance in the form of advice or information (41% of all interventions recorded), although negotiation (25%), advocacy (17%) and representation by an advisor in court (15%) were also important. The data collected suggest that the balance of assistance provided varies across the 5 pilots, but the monitoring framework allowed only one form of intervention to be recorded, so improved data are needed before drawing firm conclusions.

Satisfaction with the services

The research found very high levels of support for the current in-court advice pilots. Nearly everyone who completed the client questionnaire (97% of 95 responses) would recommend the service.

Court clerks, sheriffs and practitioners also reported satisfaction, largely because the ICA helped to expedite court proceedings, and also because the ICA fills a gap in legal services provision in civil justice. While other agencies provide advice to clients involved in legal proceedings, ICAs are unique in being located in the court house, providing free services, and focused only on court proceedings.

Local advice agencies, housing departments and housing associations, as well as solicitors in private practice, generally reported good links with the advisers, and thought the service beneficial.

Issues for future development

With a few exceptions, the current remit of the pilots was considered appropriate. Some potential improvements were identified, mainly to relieve pressure on the advisers due to high workloads, and to increase service accessibility.

It seems clear from the evaluation that the current ICA services provide a strong case for their establishment on a more permanent basis. If this is considered, it is recommended that the Executive should further investigate the position that ICAs should have vis-à-vis the statutory work of the court, in particular whether ICAs should see some clients on a mandatory basis, and whether their services in ordinary procedure fit with legal aid arrangements and current reform in funding for civil justice.

Many respondents felt that service improvement necessarily included further expansion of the service to other courts, and this is recommended. If this is to be done, then the key issues arising from this evaluation should be addressed. Generally however, the pilots seem to be adapting well to their own areas and court cultures and there was little support for an overly prescriptive approach.

Recommendations

The evaluation also identified ways in which the current pilots could receive greater general, central and technical support. The full research report makes 12 recommendations, which concern extending the services; maximising day to day support for the advisers; increasing integration within the court house; greater central co-ordination and support, including a technical advice line for advisers; improved internet and email presence; accessibility of accommodation; strategies for earlier intervention and improved data collection. The last would help inform future service development and models, notably the balances to be struck between the different objectives of the services.

There are some issues with extending the findings to other possible pilots. In particular, the current services are located in the sheriff courts with the highest volume of business, although all courts have substantial business within current service remits. Currently, the cities where the ICA pilots are located have a good alternative range of advice services available, such as CABx, with the exception of Aberdeen which does not provide such a wide variety of services. This is less likely to be the case in court areas with lower population coverage.

It is recommended that the Executive should consider the balance between early intervention in cases and assistance to people on the day of a hearing, and after decree is granted. This would help the services target their interventions appropriately and at present, the services assist more people in earlier stages of proceedings. More specifically, certain local issues emerging during the evaluation should be addressed. These include accommodation in Dundee and Aberdeen; lack of local agencies to support the Aberdeen service and clarifying the relationships between the local CAB and the ICA in Kilmarnock.

In addition a decision is needed about how far, if at all, ICAs should provide services to clients in ordinary procedure. This has developed as a feature of work in all of the current pilots, despite being outwith their remit. Further investigation is recommended before a decision is taken as this evaluation did not reach sufficient numbers of sheriffs and solicitors in private practice to make suggestions as to the acceptability of extension to ordinary procedure.

Conclusion

The evaluation found that demand continues to increase largely without new promotional activities, suggesting latent unmet legal need among potential clients of the service. This position is likely to be replicated in other court areas, perhaps more so since previous research found that people in less-populated parts of Scotland are twice as likely to pay for legal services as people living in cities. These figures suggest that competition with local solicitors may be more likely to occur in rural court areas: no evidence of this was found in the current pilot locations.

Full details of the research findings and recommendations are included in the research report also published.

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The report "Uniquely Placed: Evaluation of the In-Court Advice Pilots (Phase 1)", which is summarised in this research findings is a web only document and is available on the publications page of the Scottish Executive website at www.scotland.gov.uk/recent

This document (and other Research Findings and Reports) and information about social research in the Scottish Executive may be viewed on the Internet at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/socialresearch

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