The Committee considered civil legal assistance (Civil Legal Aid and Advice and Assistance for civil justice issues) and grant funding for advice organisations. Ahead of the inquiry, the Committee had heard that there can be significant barriers to accessing civil legal assistance for some clients, and that the current rules around eligibility can exclude some types of action.

Before the inquiry began, the Scottish Government published a discussion paper on legal aid reform. This proposed a three-stage approach to reform:

• changes to regulations to simplify the current system, to be delivered in 2025 to 2026 - for civil legal assistance, proposals include introducing standard fees for work relating to adults with incapacity legislation and assessing financial eligibility using standardised personal allowances
• reform of legal aid fees, to be delivered in 2025
• longer-term reform, including testing different funding models and embedding user experience in decision-making, with a view to introducing new legislation in the future

The Committee wanted to find out what is working and not working within the current civil legal aid system and what changes could be made in the short and longer term to address access issues.