1997 No. 718 (S.61)
LEGAL AID AND ADVICE, SCOTLAND

The Legal Aid in Contempt of Court Proceedings (Scotland) (Fees) Amendment Regulations 1997

Made
Laid before Parliament
Coming into force
The Secretary of State, in exercise of the powers conferred on him by sections 33(2)(a) and (3)(b) and (f) of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 19861 and of all other powers enabling him in that behalf, hereby makes the following Regulations:

Citation, commencement and interpretation1.

(1)

These Regulations may be cited as the Legal Aid in Contempt of Court Proceedings (Scotland) (Fees) Amendment Regulations 1997 and shall come into force on 1st April 1997.

(2)

In these Regulations–

“the Act” means the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986;

“the principal Regulations” means the Legal Aid in Contempt of Court Proceedings (Scotland) (Fees) Regulations 19922.

Application2.

These Regulations shall apply only to fees for work done on or after 1st April 1997.

Amendment of the principal Regulations3.

For paragraphs 5 and 6 of Schedule 1 to the principal Regulations (table of fees allowable to solicitors for legal aid made available under section 30 of the Act in connection with proceedings for contempt of court) there shall be substituted the following paragraphs:–

“5.

Where a document is copied and it is necessary to take a copy of more than 20 sheets (whether 20 of 1 sheet, 5 of 4 sheets or whatever), a fee of 8 pence shall be paid for each sheet copied.

Interpretation6.

In this Table–

  • a “sheet” shall consist of 250 words or numbers; and

  • a “page” shall consist of 125 words or numbers.”.

James Douglas-Hamilton
Minister of State, Scottish Office

St Andrew’s House,

Edinburgh

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the Legal Aid in Contempt of Court Proceedings (Scotland) (Fees) Regulations 1992 (“the principal Regulations”).

The Regulations substitute new paragraphs 5 and 6 in Schedule 1 to the principal Regulations so as to reduce the fees allowed to solicitors for copying for legal aid in connection with proceedings for contempt of court. The Regulations also simplify the drafting of these paragraphs.

The new paragraphs provide that where a document is copied and it is necessary to take a copy of more than 20 sheets a fee of 8 pence shall be paid for each sheet copied (regulation 3). The previous paragraphs provided that a fee of 35 pence would be paid for each sheet where an exceptional amount of copying proved necessary (exceptional being defined as meaning the production of more than 20 output copy sheets when a document has been copied).

By virtue of regulation 2 the Regulations only apply to fees for work done on or after 1st April 1997.