The Police Station Duty Solicitor plan proposed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board has gone live today amidst farcical mass abstention of solicitors across the country and public disagreement between SLAB and the Law Society of Scotland.

This afternoon the Law Society challenged SLAB's figures on the number of participating members, and asked it to explain how the scheme is going to work in practice, even though the system is now ostensibly up and running.

 “We have consistently argued that this scheme is unnecessary, unjustified and unacceptable," said Ian Bryce, convener of the Society’s Criminal Legal Aid Negotiating Team this afternoon.

"The fact that such an overwhelming majority of solicitors involved in criminal work have refused to sign up underlines the deep concern right across Scotland.

“With the scheme now up and running, we have yet to see from the Board any more detail in terms of the number of participating solicitors. We suspect this figure would not only confirm the sheer scale of abstention but would likely show a sharp withdrawal of applications over the last week following the recent decisions of a number of faculties.

“The Board needs to explain exactly how the duty plans are working, given the mass non participation by the profession in virtually every part of Scotland. It is equally important for the full costs to be made public as we suspect the operation of this new scheme will be significantly more expensive than compared with the previous arrangements which generally worked well.”

One practising solicitor in Glasgow told The Firm there had been "confusion & disarray" as the plan came into effect.

"The Plan is supposed to be in place today but individual solicitors in the Glasgow Bar Association [are] still getting calls direct," The Firm was told. 

SLAB Chief Executive Lindsay Montgomery has not responded to The Firm's requests for information or input into this matter. However, Marie Louise Fox, SLAB's communications officer told The Firm on Firday that Montgomery "will respond next week."