Scottish Parliament consults on raising court fees

Just like the star of Bethlehem, legal costs are in the ascent in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is consulting on raising court fees for Scottish jurisdiction. Its objective is to ensure that the fees collected are sufficient to pay for running its courts.  A “demand-led” remission scheme is available which is intended to protect access to justice.

https://consult.gov.scot/courts/scottish-court-fees-2018-2021/user_uploads/00526265-2.pdf

Court fees have generally been reviewed every three years, with the last full round being implemented in 2015.

In 2016 the Scottish Government concluded that it was necessary to move further towards full-cost recovery in the courts, which has been the policy of the current and previous governments for some time. The Court Fees (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Order 2016 came into force on 28 November 2016.  This order raised the level of fees significantly, although certain fees, such as those in the Sheriff Personal Injury Court, were frozen in order to protect access to justice.  The overall effect was intended to bring the level of fees to the point at which they cover the costs of the civil justice system. 

Inflationary pressures in the wider economy have driven the Scottish Government to adhere to the original three yearly review to set fees for the three- year period commencing on 1 April 2018 (by which point it will be 17 months since the last fees increase).

Unlike the position in England & Wales, where a policy of enhanced court fees has developed, it is not intended that court fees should move to a point where a profit is made (that could be used to subsidise other parts of the justice system).

A separate but connected development is the Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Bill currently before the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government state that this will make the costs of civil action more predictable by increasing the funding options for pursuers of civil actions through greater availability of “no win, no fee” success fee agreements.   

 It is proposed that qualified one-way cost-shifting should be introduced for personal injury claims and this will also protect pursuers from the risk of having to pay their opponent's costs in personal injury cases if the case is lost, provided they have acted properly (as in England & Wales). 

LEI ensures that personal injury claimants are able to keep their damages in full. Considered together these two developments support the premise that LEI will provide even better value than before for our policyholders in Scotland.

Landlords Legal Solutions

By the way – a reminder that we have updated our Landlords policy to reflect the new landlord and tenant law in Scotland.

With all best wishes for the festive season from the Product Development team at ARAG.

Legal disputes, legal expenses insurance and access to justice

The Ministry of Justice has just released civil justice stats for July to September 2017
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/665073/civil-justice-statistics-quarterly-july-sept-2017.pdf
An increase in claims is evident – in fact a 13% increase over the same quarter last year and this is driven by 15% increase in the number of specified money claims which stand at 560,000 – the second highest number since 2006.
70% of money claims involved sums in dispute of less than £1,000.
The number of cases which are contested and proceed to a trial has increased by some 11%.

The figure I picked up on is that where claims were defended, 56% had legal representation for both claimant and defendant (down one percentage point from July to September 2016), 24% had representation for claimant only (up one percentage point over the same period), and 3% for defendant only.  This points to a considerable gap in affordable access to justice which is the tip of an iceberg. It is impossible to know how many individuals and businesses are deterred from pursuing claims or putting forward a defence by cost barriers and/or lack of confidence and time required to manage their litigation. 
The CJC’ s recent information study, “The Law and Practicalities of Before-the-event (BTE) insurance” found that “BTE offers large numbers of people access to significant assistance, including via legal helplines (and, less commonly, legal websites)”.  https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/publications/cjc-publish-report-on-before-the-event-legal-expenses-insurance/

Businesses and individuals can quickly recognise savings that exceed the premium they paid for their legal expenses policy by down loading free legal documents and using our helplines.  The barrier to recognising the considerable value of products is lack of awareness of the benefits available.  I am optimistic that awareness is beginning to improve and the CJC’s information study could be influential in contributing to this. More importantly brokers have a huge part to play in helping customers to fully understand how products can help them.

This leads me on to Insurance Product Information Documents. Just a reminder, if you are selling a “standard ”ARAG product  log into our website to down-load our new Insurance Product Information Documents. If the product you are selling is not quite standard we will modify the relevant standard document for you to ensure that it is suitable and send you a customised IPID document.
If you are a product manufacturer and have ARAG cover integrated into your products please get in touch with your broker account manager or me if you would us to supply or approve ARAG content for your IPIDs.