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Community Legal Service (CLS)- Civil areas of work
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Immigration contracts
On this page:
- About the Unified Contract
- Immigration and Asylum Graduated Fee Scheme
- Immigration Advice in Immigration Removal Centres
- Immigration Advice at the Police Station
- Contract Guidance
- Consultation on the Unified Contract
About the Unified Contract
All our civil legal aid providers must sign a contract with us. The Unified Contract for civil legal aid providers replaces our General Civil Contract
The Unified Contract (Civil) regulates how civil legal aid work is funded by the Community Legal Service (CLS). This makes sure we get competent, quality assured, best value contract work.
To view the contract documents, please visit the Unified Contract page.
Immigration and Asylum Graduated Fee Scheme
This fee scheme applies to all immigration cases opened and the majority of asylum cases lodged with the Home Office on or after 1 October 2007.
Visit the Payrates and schemes page to read more.
Immigration Advice in Immigration Removal Centres
In 2005, we piloted the provision of ‘on site’ immigration advice within Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs).
Organisations were then invited to tender to provide services for individuals detained at the following IRCs:
- Campsfield
- Colnbrook
- Dover
- Harmondsworth
- Haslar
- Lindholme
- Oakington
- Tinsley House
- Yarl’s Wood.
There are two parts to our Immigration Removal Centre Advice Scheme;
- Onsite surgeries at all nine IRCs;
- Fast Track services at Harmondsworth and Yarl’s Wood.
Immigration advice at the Police Station
In June 2006 we set up a pilot to address an advice gap for individuals detained at police stations.
We were concerned that individuals detained at police stations often faced difficulty in getting civil immigration advice, particularly outside office hours and weekends.
Following a successful pilot, organisations tendered to provide one-off pieces of immigration legal advice, by telephone on a rota basis, to clients detained at police stations.
The scheme is designed to allow clients to:
- clarify their rights and legal position on their immigration status
- clarify any actions they may need to take
- understand what is likely to happen to them and, in some cases resolve the matter without the need for further representation
One organisation per week will cover all calls during a ‘Rota Week’, running from Monday to Sunday between 7am and 12 midnight each day.
Police station staff will place calls with a call centre, which will refer the calls to the organisation on the rota for that week.
The contracts began on 24th November 2008 and will run to 31st March 2010.
Visit the Tenders pages for details of the new contracts and the tender process.
Contract Guidance
- FAQs effective from 1 June 2009 are under Documents.
- The Civil and Immigration Specifications are available in The Unified Contract section of this website.
- The Civil Codes Guidance is available in the Immigration CMRF section of our Controlled Work Forms page.
- A revised version of the Funding Code Decision Making Guidance – Section 29, effective from 1 June 2009, is available on The Funding Code page.
Consultation on the Unified Contract
In July 2006 the LSC published ‘Legal Aid: A Sustainable Future’, in which we proposed the introduction of a Unified Contract from 1 April 2007.
Following consultation on those proposals we published ‘Legal Aid: The Way Ahead’ in November 2006.
Copies of the consultation papers and summaries of the responses can be found by clicking on ‘Consultation Documents’ on the Legal Aid Reform: A Sustainable Future/The Way Ahead consultation page.
On 1 March 2007 the Commission published a consultation, which comprised of a number of documents making up the Specification of the Unified Contract.
The Immigration Specification came into effect from 1 October 2007.
All parts of the Specification have been subject to extensive formal and informal consultation.
Copies of the draft Unified Contract Specification, as well as a review of the responses, can be found by clicking on ‘Consultation Documents’ on the Unified Contract Specification (Civil) consultation page.
As part of our agreement with The Law Society, changes to certain remuneration rates took effect on 1 July 2008.
Visit the Agreement with the Law Society page to read more on the agreement.
Visit the Unified Contract page to see copies of the Payment Annexes.
Last updated: 09 June 2009