Scottish Government

General Trends

There were 85,256 civil cases initiated across both the Court of Session and the sheriff courts in 2011-12 (not including summary applications), a drop of 13 per cent on 2010-11 and 35 per cent on 2008-09.

There is a large variation in the number of civil cases dealt with by the individual sheriff courts, with Glasgow having over 16,000 cases initiated in 2011-12 compared to the smallest courts which handled fewer than 100 civil cases.

Sheriff court cases made up almost three quarters (72 per cent) of all gross civil legal aid costs in 2010-11.