Expenses for Jury Service

This guide explains the allowances which are paid for attendance as a juror. Information and forms are supplied directly to those attending to serve on a jury.

Allowances are paid to jurors to compensate for of pocket expenses and loss of earnings or benefits.  There are maximum amounts which can be claimed for different allowances. The rates are fixed by Scottish Ministers and are reviewed every year. The maximum amounts payable are given in this guide. There is no scope for any juror to be paid more than these maximum amounts.

A juror may be entitled to six kinds of allowance:

Method of payment

Help to complete the claim form?

Fraudulent claims

Additional information for employers

If your employee will not be paid their normal salary whilst on jury service, they will provide you with a form to complete to allow them to claim the allowance for loss of earnings, see Loss of earnings above.
Jury service is unlikely to last for more than a week, but the exact length of any trial is hard to estimate. It depends on a number of factors, many of them outwith the court’s control. For example, a trial involving a large number of witnesses will generally take longer than a trial with only a few. Cases which do take longer than a week are more likely to occur in the High Court, but can also on occasion happen in the Sheriff Court. You may wish to continue paying your employee whilst they are undertaking their public duty. If you do not pay your employee whilst he or she attends for jury service, your employee may claim for loss of earnings. However, there are maximum amounts which can be claimed and the current rates are noted above. Some business insurance policies have provisions for losses incurred as a result of jury service. For example they may cover losses due to employees being called for jury service or rearranging a business trip. You should check your policy carefully to see if you are entitled to make a claim. Your employee may be required to attend court every day during the period of jury service. However, it may be possible to release your employee, either for whole days or half days, during that period of service. If this happens, your employee must return to work if at all possible. It is important that jurors are sufficiently fit and alert in order to carry out their important public duty. Therefore we would recommend that they should not be made to work night shifts before they are due in court, or work weekends if this means that they do not have a break from either jury service or their job in the preceding seven days.