What's new

We have today launched a 6-week consultation, Phase 1 Civil Fee Schemes Review  – Proposed Amendments from 2010: A Consultation, setting out proposed amendments to civil fee schemes.

The amendments follow a review of the Phase 1 Civil Fee Schemes carried out with the Civil Contracts Consultative Group. The review report is published separately from the consultation paper.

Proposed amendments

The consultation focuses on proposals for two amendments to the civil fee schemes:

• the introduction of a tolerance fee for personal injury work; and
• a separate preparation fee for in-house advocates working on family public law care and supervision cases.

The consultation will run from 1 April – 13 May 2009.

Renumeration for advocacy

Representative bodies claim that this scheme doesn’t distinguish between general case preparation and preparation for a hearing.

The evidence we have so far has not shown any need to make changes in this area. However we are currently consulting on a new remuneration scheme for advocacy Family Legal Aid Funding from 2010. One of the issues in that consultation is how preparation for advocacy carried out by an in-house advocate is remunerated. 

That consultation closes on 3 April and all responses will be carefully reviewed before any decisions are made. 

Options

For now all options remain open. A new advocacy scheme may apply to

• all family cases,
• public law cases only or
• private law cases only. 

If we don’t proceed with the public law advocacy scheme then we’ll need to address the issue of how to pay for preparation for solicitor advocacy.  So, this issue forms part of the Phase 1 fee schemes review.

Review findings

The key findings from the review show that:

• there has been a 1.84% increase in the number of New Matter Starts
• the diversity of client and providers has remained relatively static
• disbursement costs remain similar to pre-fixed fees introduction.

The review report found that no major changes were needed to the current civil fee schemes other than those outlined above.

Responding to the consultation

We welcome your views on our proposals and encourage you to respond to our consultation through the online response system on our civil consultations page.