Civil contracts

On this page:

About the Unified Contract
Agreement with Law Society - April 2008
Contract for Signature
Standard Terms
Civil Specification for 1 October 2007
Family Mediation Specification for 1 October 2007
Equality and Diversity
Specialist Quality Mark
Mental Health Specification

About the Unified Contract

The Unified Contract for civil legal aid providers replaces our General Civil Contract and Family Mediation Contract. It brings conditions for not-for-profit advisors into line with solicitors who carry out civil legal aid work.

Please see the Documents panel (the green box on the right hand side of this page) for a summary of the contract documents.

For the most recent information affecting the contract visit the CLS>News and Updates pages.

Agreement with Law Society - April 2008

The LSC, Law Society and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) have agreed a way forward for the legal aid reform programme, following the Court of Appeal’s judgment on the Unified Contract.

The Law Society has agreed to discontinue further litigation.

As a result of this agreement we anticipate that the Unified Civil Contract will run its course until April 2010. The LSC will be working with the Law Society and others on the likely content of future contracts over the next few months with a view to full consultation later this year.

As part of the agreement, the LSC and MoJ have agreed to:

targeted increases in some of the fees in the civil fee schemes already introduced
not implement further family fee changes for solicitors until April 2010
not introduce full implementation of best value tendering for mainstream civil legal aid services until 2013, with pilots proposed in some areas between 2010 and 2013
make new arrangements in respect of historic unrecouped payments on account (meaning generally payments on account made at least six years ago)
provide for the right to undertake Remainder Work on the no fault termination of a contract
make new provisions for the reconciliation of Standard Monthly Payments (SMPs) designed to keep changes to a minimum
delay until July 2009 the introduction of any best value tendering scheme for criminal defence services that may be introduced following a recent consultation.

The Joint Statement published with the agreement is in the Documents panel (the green box on the right hand side of this page).

Contract for Signature

The Contract for Signature sets out the term of the Unified Contract. It will be in force until 31 March 2010 with an option for extension up to 31 March 2012.

The Key Information Tables set out bespoke information that applies to service providers.

Providers also receive an Office Schedule for each of their offices that carry out legal aid work.

The immigration and asylum success rate is now in the Office Schedule. There is no change in practice: where the LSC has funded representation before the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, there must be a minimum success rate of 40% combined and 35% in respect of asylum and immigration cases respectively.

Standard Terms

The new Standard Terms build on the General Civil Contracts and include similar provisions. They have been updated and simplified where possible. A copy is in the Documents panel (the green box on the right hand side of this page).

The main changes include:

creating a more efficient way of working with service providers by issuing one contract per organisation rather than one per office
introducing new provisions relating to e-business and equality and diversity
introducing new Payment on Account provisions as agreed with the representative bodies, these dispense with the £250 automatic payment on the issue of each legal aid certificate but bring forward the first claim to three months (this should more than compensate providers in terms of any reduced cash flow and the removal of the automatic payment will deal with the problems that have become apparent in the current exercise concerning Unrecouped Payments on Account)
enabling the LSC to set a minimum number of new cases to be started by an individual office each year as well as a maximum.

Civil Specification for 1 October 2007

We have published our Unified Contract Specification (General, Family Category Specific, Immigration Category Specific, Miscellaneous Category Specific and the Payment Annex) under the Documents panel (the green box on the right hand side of this page).

The previous Specification (in force from 1 April 2007) shall continue to apply to those matters and cases opened in the Mental Health Category of Law.

The Contract Notice amending the Unified Contract from 1 October 2007 was sent to all providers w/c 13 August 2007.

The Civil Specification is the main vehicle for bringing into effect the various civil fee schemes from 1 October 2007 (1 January 2008 for Mental Health). A new Funding Order and certain Funding Code and regulation changes support the changes to the fee schemes.

After further consultation with the Advice Services Alliance we have published the NfP transitional provisions. These apply to all NfP providers who previously carried out work under NfP Specifications.

Family Mediation Specification for 1 October 2007

We have published our Unified Contract Family Mediation Specification under the Documents panel (the green box on the right hand side of this page).

This Specification will apply to all Solicitor and NfP providers and brings into force from 1 October the fee schemes consulted on earlier this year.

The Contract Notice amending the Unified Contract from 1 October 2007 was sent to all providers w/c 13 August 2007.

Equality and diversity

Please see Documents (the green box on the right hand side of this page) for our Equality and Diversity Guidance. This aims to support providers in complying with the requirements of the Unified Contract.

The Specialist Quality Mark

The Specialist Quality Mark (SQM) will continue to be used and applied for all providers (even if they are on the Preferred Supplier Pilot) until we reach the stage of only working with Preferred Suppliers.

Providers will note that the SQM is their required Quality Standard under the Key Information Tables set out in their Contract for Signature.

Final mental health specification published

Following consultation earlier this summer, we have now published our final Mental Health Category Specific Section. This can be downloaded from the Documents panel (the green box on the right hand side of this page).

The Mental Health specification sets out the criteria for the various levels of service and also mental health specific rules which facilitate the operation of the Fixed Fee scheme in the Mental Health category of law.

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Last updated: 28 May 2008