Press Releases pre-May 2010

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) today announced it would postpone the tender for the new civil legal aid contracts until late 2009 or early 2010.  The new 3 year civil legal aid contracts will now commence in October 2010. This will mean that current contracts will be extended for 6 months.

The postponement of the tender will allow legal aid providers more time to decide whether they want to bid for the new contracts and prepare their tenders based on recently published policy. It will also give them more time to enter into joint arrangements to deliver social welfare law services if they wish to do so. 

By postponing the bid rounds, the LSC will also be able to ensure, together with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), that the final policy on harmonising the fees paid to family solicitors and barristers are robust and can be introduced with the new civil legal aid contracts in October 2010. The LSC and MoJ are committed to pay the same amount for the same work, regardless of who carries out the work.    

This timetable change will mean that there will not be an overlap between tender activity for civil and crime legal aid contracts, alleviating pressure that may be felt by practices that would like to bid for both. The timetable for the bid round for crime contracts, including the crime best value tendering pilots, is unchanged and planned to start in October 2009.

Commenting on the postponement, Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive of the Legal Services Commission, said:

“We have listened to recent comments made by providers and their representative bodies and, in view of the importance of securing more accessible and integrated client services in the future, we feel that it is only prudent to afford more time to providers to prepare properly for this tender.”

A new timetable for the civil contracts programme is currently being drawn up and the LSC will keep providers and stakeholders informed of developments. We will also continue to publish our procurement plans, which outline what we want to purchase in each procurement area, during the next couple of weeks. An electronic ‘LSC Update’ will be sent to all providers today.

Media information

Richard Shand   (Tel: 020 7783 7219)

Notes to editors

1. Lord Bach, the Legal Aid Minister, made a Written Ministerial Statement about Family Legal Aid Funding from 2010 on 20 July 2009.