For legal aid to be granted for a psychological long assessment and report the following tests must be satisfied:
- The report directly relates to the proposed plea and it is likely to result in a significant reduction in the sentence that might otherwise be expected, and
- The material cannot be presented to the court without obtaining the report, and
- the applicant has been provided aid for the substantive matter, and
- the applicant meets the merits test.
If the report writer refuses to accept the scale of fees to prepare the report or appear as a witness, the request will be referred to a Grants Manager for consideration.
Requests for an interstate report writer are determined by the Assistant Director Grants.
Requirements
Extension of aid requests received from preferred supplier or in-house practitioner
Practitioners seeking a grant of legal assistance should electronically submit an extension of aid request via the Grants Online system and include details of the number of hours sought to prepare the report. The practitioner must also provide information to support the merits test with regards to the “appropriateness of spending limited public Legal Aid funds" test, and the "prudent self-funding litigant" test.
Interpretation
For aid to be granted for a psychological long assessment and report, the practitioner would need to certify that:
- For a criminal compensation matter - the report is required to assist in the assessment of quantum.
- For a criminal law matter - there are exceptional circumstances which mean that the report writer is required to spend more time preparing the report than allowed by the grant of aid that issues for a short psychological assessment and report.
Exceptional circumstances may include:
- There is a voluminous amount of medical material which the psychologist will need to consider in order to prepare a report.
- Psychometric testing is required which cannot be provided under the psychological pre-sentence report grant (PY1) or a psychological brief assessment and report grant (PY5).
Grant(s) of aid
The grant of aid for a long psychological assessment and report is PY6.