Press Releases pre-May 2010

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) announced today that it would be appealing the judgment in the judicial review brought against the Unified Contract by The Law Society.  Mr Justice Beatson handed down the judgment on 27 July 2007.

Civil legal aid providers - solicitor firms and not-for-profit agencies - have been delivering services under a new single Unified Contract since April 2007. The Law Society’s judicial review of the Unified Contract challenged the lawfulness of the amendment clause in the contract.  If this challenge had fully succeeded, it would have affected the LSC’s ability to introduce new civil fee schemes from October 2007.

In fact, the substance and objectives of the legal aid reform programme were not challenged in any way by the judgment and it did not prevent the LSC from amending the Unified Contract to introduce the new civil legal aid fee schemes from October 2007. 

The LSC is therefore continuing with all elements of the legal aid reform programme and will introduce fixed fees for civil work as planned from October 2007.

The only aspect of the judgment that was against the LSC related to the ability to amend the ‘technical specifications’ of the Unified Contract, such as peer review requirements and key performance indicators. We do not agree with the decision on amending the ‘technical specifications’ or with the judge’s interpretation of some aspects of EU and domestic procurement law.  The LSC has therefore decided to appeal.

It had been the LSC’s intention to issue a notice of amendment to the existing General Criminal Contract, to come into effect during October, in order to implement a number of reforms to the criminal legal aid scheme.

However, unlike the civil Unified Contract, the General Criminal Contract was entered into some time before the legal aid reform programme was announced and therefore providers would not have been aware of the proposed reforms at the time they signed.  Because of this and the uncertainty arising from the Unified Contract judgment, the LSC will not now issue this notice of amendment.

Instead, the LSC intends shortly to:

• terminate the existing General Criminal Contract with effect from 13 January 2008
• run an open process leading to the award of new contracts which will operate for 6 months from 14 January 2008
• re-allocate duty solicitor work and issue rotas on that basis for the six months of the new contract.

This means that the following legal aid reforms for criminal work that were to be implemented between 15 October 2007 and 1 January 2008 will now be incorporated into the new criminal contract which will come into effect from 14 January 2008:

• new Police Station fixed fees and revised boundary areas
• expansion of the Defence Solicitor Call Centre to ‘own client’ work
• expansion of CDS Direct to those elements of ‘own client’ work suitable for telephone advice
• introduction of the Very High Cost Case contracting panel (to run for 18 months, as previously announced).

We intend to introduce the Litigators Graduated Fee Scheme at the same time, subject to the outcome of the consultation.

Thereafter, the LSC intends to introduce the Unified Contract for criminal legal aid services from July 2008. It is proposed that this will continue to run until, subject to consultation, it is replaced by contracts let through a process of Best Value Tendering. 

Commenting on the decision to appeal the judgment, Carolyn Regan, the Legal Services Commission Chief Executive, said:

“The legal aid reforms are specifically about maximising access to legal aid for the future. By achieving best value for money and rebalancing the overall budget to provide more funding for civil work, we can continue to increase the growing number of people helped.

“The judgment could possibly result in the need for much shorter contracts to ensure that we can amend the ‘technical specifications’ at regular intervals to reflect changes in circumstances or Government policy. Such short-term contracts would not be in the interests of providers, or clients.”

Following consultation on how to allocate slots for police station work on an interim basis, the LSC has decided to continue with the current system based on one slot per duty solicitor. This will take effect from 1 October 2007 and run through to 13 January 2008. These arrangements are set out in the response to the recent consultation on police station duty solicitor allocations which has been published today. The LSC will issue new rotas from 14 January 2008 for the period of the new criminal contract – again, on the basis of duty solicitors.

Media information

Gary Spink   Tel: 020 7759 0493

Notes to editors

1. The Unified Contract came into force on 1 April 2007, after the General Civil Contract expired on 31 March 2007.  From 1 April 2007 any provider wishing to undertake new civil legal aid cases must hold a Unified Contract.

2. 95% of solicitor firms and 98% of not-for-profit agencies that held General Civil Contracts signed the Unified Contract and continue to provide valuable legal aid services to clients.