How many, and what percentage of, accused persons qualifying for legal aid have been referred to the Public Defence Solicitors’ Office…

For the purposes of the independent evaluation submitted to Parliament in September 2001, all persons eligible for criminal legal aid prosecuted in the Edinburgh courts between October 1998 and June 2000, and born in the months of January or February, were directed to use the Public Defence Solicitors’ Office (PDSO), subject to a system of waivers, primarily relating to clients with current related cases being dealt with by other solicitors. The number of cases taken on for clients directed to the PDSO in Edinburgh in each of the three financial years or part year during which direction operated were 305, 856 and 185 (in 1998-99, 1999-2000 and 2000-01 respectively). No clients have been directed to the PDSO since the system of direction was abolished in July 2000.
The following table shows the total number of new cases taken on by the PDSO (whether or not under direction) in each year since it opened and the percentage this represents of the total number of acts of criminal legal assistance in each of those years. Criminal legal assistance includes grants of advice andassistance, assistance by way of representation, summary criminal legal aid andsolemn legal aid, as well as clients represented by duty solicitors.

| 1998-99
| 1999-2000
| 2000-01
| 2001-02
| 2002-03
| 2003-04

Number of new PDSO cases*
| 417
| 1034
| 1456*
| 1684*
| 1538*
| 1464*

Number of acts of criminal legal assistance
| 222,348
| 245,844
| 260,367
| 270,162
| 271,769
| 278,151

PDSO cases as % of acts of assistance
| 0.2%
| 0.4%
| 0.6%
| 0.6%
| 0.6%
| 0.5%

Note: *These figures include cases in which the PDSO acted as duty solicitor on behalf of other solicitors. They therefore differ from those published in the Scottish Legal Aid Board’s annual reports. The PDSO only acted as duty solicitor from July 2000 onwards.
There are no plans for public defence solicitors to be paid on a case-by-case basis.