Members of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association (SSBA) will not take part in summary cases heard as part of the new Summary Case Management (SCM) initiative.

SCM has been piloted in five sheriff courts and is to start in Glasgow next month before being extended across Scotland.

It deals with non-jury cases such as domestic abuse offences, assault and drink-driving as well as breach of the peace.

Under SCM, evidence is disclosed to the defence at the start of the process – before any plea is made. In the pilot, more than 500 summary trials did not go to trial as a result of early guilty pleas. An analysis found that this meant that 18,000 witnesses, including 11,000 police officers did not have to attend court unnecessarily.

The scheme should result in significant savings, but none of these are being used to fund legal aid.

The fee for a summary trial is £113.56, which is added to the £572 core fee for initial consultations as well as case preparation, negotiations with the Crown Office, initial court hearings and, possibly, conducting a trial.

The SSBA is seeking an additional block fee since solicitors would now have to do all the work in a fortnight instead of two to three months. They argue £150 should be added to the block fee and that there should be a 20 per cent increase in the core fee – bringing it to £686.

In a note, SSBA president Simon Brown said that the core fee had not kept pace with inflation and that it stood at £500 in 1999.

He said: “The lack of funding through legal aid to the criminal defence bar has had a significant impact upon the ability to recruit solicitors to undertake this work.

“Interestingly, the number of solicitors on the criminal legal aid register in 2006-07 was 1,466 and in 2023-24 it was 936.”

He added: “There is a crisis in the funding of the criminal defence bar. Due to the lack of funding, the numbers undertaking this work has decreased significantly and, given the demographic, it is anticipated the numbers will fall rapidly in the next 10 years.”

He said it was “considered that the best course of action should be a boycott of SCM cases, with solicitors refusing to attend to SCM cases within each sheriff court”.

Victims minister Siobhian Brown said: “We value the role of legal aid providers and I recognise improvement is needed to legal aid.

“That is why I have announced action to make the system simpler and easier for solicitors and those who need legal assistance – along with longer-term proposals for funding and improving the delivery of services.

“This includes a review of legal aid fees that will help develop regular assessments to ensure the system remains fair and sustainable.”