SPICe has been working – through its academic fellowship scheme – with Dr Mustapha Douch from Edinburgh University. Dr Douch has used econometric techniques to identify areas where access to legal support for civil justice issues may be more difficult than it should be.
His research – Access to Legal Aid and Advice Services in Scotland – was published today.
The research looked at three distinct areas:
- how people navigate civil justice problems, taken from data from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey
- structural issues creating risks at local authority level for access to legal advice and support, mapped through the Civil Legal Support Index
- what data on Civil Legal Aid applications can tell us about hot spots and cold spots for access to legal aid – via the Mismatch Index for Scotland.
Key findings from the research
The main findings were:
- a significant proportion of reported civil justice problems remain unresolved, with some people giving up even after seeking advice from a solicitor or advice agency
- the factors behind why issues remain unresolved, or why people use advice agencies or solicitors, are complex – the type of problem plays an important role and psychological components, such as self-reliance and trust in justice institutions, are also relevant
- structural risks to accessing legal support at local authority level are highest where high need and barriers to access meet low supply – in 2024, seven councils faced critical access risks
- the lowest levels of local legal capacity are found in two very different places: islands with small or dispersed populations which cannot sustain commercial practices; and commuter councils next to cities, where capacity exists nearby but access is reliant on transport links and planning is outwith local council control
- higher local levels of poor health is the strongest predictor of access to legal support risk –high levels of disability and chronic illness may increase overall need for legal advice and support
- there are two types of access problem for Civil Legal Aid: low levels of local supply and hidden barriers – this reinforces the idea that access is not only about how many providers exist but also about whether people can identify, reach and use them in practice
- areas which appear to be overserved in terms of access to Civil Legal Aid appear to benefit from strong urban infrastructure, service clustering, and possibly embedded referral networks – in under-served areas, those links may be weaker, or there may be additional barriers reducing uptake, despite apparent proximity to provision.
How to use the Civil Legal Support Index
The Civil Legal Support Index (CLSI) is hosted on Edinburgh University’s website. It brings together data across three pillars –need, access barriers and available legal support services – by year and by local authority. It is possible to look at the picture for each year between 2013 and 2024. It is also possible to adjust the weighting given to the various pillars in the model to personalise results.
How the database was constructed
Dr Douch brought together data relevant to each of the three pillars to build up a local picture of structural risk. Higher scores in each pillar mean higher risk. The factors included in each pillar are:
- Need: signals that civil justice problems are more likely to arise, such as homelessness and overcrowding, unemployment and low incomes, poorer health or disability, lower qualifications, crime levels and the presence of people who may need immigration advice
- Access barriers: the everyday frictions that make it hard to reach or use services, such as households without a car, weaker public transport and longer travel times to services (including rurality and remoteness), digital exclusion, and long working hours that leave little time to seek help
- Legal and advice service supply – the local “safety net” for civil legal support, solicitors who can take legal aid cases and advice/third sector capacity. The advice measure looks specifically at legal charities and organisations accredited under the Scottish National Standards for Information and Advice Providers.
The measure used by CLSI is a 0 to 100 risk score that summarises the chance that residents cannot get timely support with civil justice problems. Scotland’s national average stayed around 42 to 52 across the decade.
Adjusting the timeframe
The data collected for the CLSI spans 2013 to 2024. The default view shows information from 2024. But it is possible to look at each year independently to build up a picture of legal advice and support access issues over time.
Identifying the most adversely impacted local authorities
The map view shows the risks facing local authorities in Scotland relative to each other for each year. It is also possible to generate a list of the local authorities most adversely impacted by year:
- by “critical cold spot” – those councils facing the most risk to access legal advice and support
- by “advice deserts” – councils with the lowest legal advice and support supply scores
Adjusting the weighting given to structural risk factors
As constructed, the CLSI gives equal weighting to each of the pillars to come up with a final score which indicates the level of structural risk around access to civil justice advice and support services in a local authority area.
The CLSI can be adjusted to look at the impact of need, access barriers or availability of services separately in any given year.
The weighting given to each of these factors can also be independently adjusted to create personalised results for each year.
Future development
Dr Douch will be continuing his work with SPICe in order to update and refine both the CLSI and the Mismatch Index. Updates involving 2024/25 figures for legal aid applications should be available by the end of September. Depending on the data available, it may also be possible to provide data zone level information for the CLSI.
Abigail Bremner, SPICe researcher (civil justice)