The Unified Contract (Civil)

On this page:

About the Unified Contract
Update: Unified Contract –Notice of Contract Extension 31 Jan 2012
Update: Notice of amendments to the 2007 Unified Contract (Civil) to implement MoJ reforms - 1 Sept 2011
Update: Notice of Unified Contract (Civil) 2007 amendments
Update: Unified Contract (Family and Family with Housing) extension - new Schedules January 2011
Update: Unified Contract - Notice of Contract Extension Nov 2010
Unified Contract - Notice of Contract Amendment and Extension Oct 2010
Contract documents
Contract notices
Contract for Signature
Standard Terms
Specifications
For more information

About the Unified Contract

All our civil legal aid providers must sign a contract with us

Our 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.

Update: Unified Contract –Notice of Contract Extension 31 Jan 2012

The Unified Contract (Civil) 2007 has now been extended until midnight on 31 January 2012 for only the Suppliers who currently deliver ‘family only’ and ‘family and housing’ publicly funded legal services

Update: Notice of amendments to the 2007 Unified Contract (Civil) to implement MoJ reforms - 1 Sept 2011

The LSC have today published amendments to the 2007 Unified Contract (Civil) to implement the Community Legal Service (Funding) (Amendment No2) Order 2011 that was laid on 24 August 2011 and is expected to come into force on 3 October 2011.

These amendments have been subject to consultation with the representative bodies. The formal notice of the contract amendments that have been made and the revised contract specification can be found in the documents section.

Update: Notice of Unified Contract (Civil) 2007 amendments April 2011 - Family Fees

We published on 8 April 2011 the:

Notice of Unified Contract (Civil) 2007 amendments to implement the new family fees on 9 May 2011
relevant amended Unified Contract (Civil) documentation

The April 2011 notice and revised contract documents are available in the documents panel on the right of this page.

These documents have been published following a new funding order from the Ministry of Justice and consultation with representative bodies on the Unified Contract (Civil) 2007.

Update: Unified Contract (Family and Family with Housing) extension - new schedules January 2011

12 January 2011: We have today published an update on the new schedules for providers delivering work under the extended Unified Contract in Family and Family with Housing.

The existing Unified Contract schedules under which this work is delivered cover the period up to 14 January 2011. We will shortly be sending out new schedules to cover the period 15 January 2011 to 30 November 2011.

These schedules will set out the number of New Matter Starts which can be carried out in Family (and Housing where applicable), as well as information on the offices where work can be carried out, and tolerance work. The update is available in the "Latest Updates" section of the Documents panel on the right hand side of this page.

Update: Unified Contract –Notice of Contract Extension Nov 2010

The Unified Contract (Civil) 2007 has now been extended until midnight on 30 November 2011 for only the Suppliers who currently deliver ‘family only’ and ‘family and housing’ publicly funded legal services.

The 2010 Standard Civil Contract for all non-family publicly funded services (including family mediation services) starts on 15 November 2010, for those who have been successful in the recent tender process for those services.

Unified Contract - Notice of Contract Amendment and Extension Oct 2010

The Unified Contract (Civil) 2007 has been extended until midnight on 14 December 2010 for only the Suppliers who currently deliver ‘family only’ and ‘family and housing’ publicly funded legal services. The quashing order issued by the High Court means that the LSC cannot proceed with awarding the 2010 Standard Civil Contracts in respect of those services to providers who were successful in the recent tender.

The 2010 Standard Civil Contract for all non-family publicly funded services (including family mediation services) will start on 15 November 2010, for those who have been successful in the recent tender process for those services.

Contract documents

All documents are in the Documents panel on the right.

We keep providers updated about information affecting the contract via the CLS news page.

Contract notices

The Unified Contract (Civil) commenced on 1 Apr 07

We amended the contract on 1 Oct 07, 1 Jan 08, 1 Jul 08 and 3 Nov 2008.

See the Documents panel for the current version of the Unified Contract (Civil) including the latest 3 November 08 amendments made to take account of changes to the tribunal system resulting from the Tribunals, Court and Enforcements Act 2007.

Extension of contract notice - Sept 2010

The Unified Contract (Civil) 2007 has been extended to 14 November 2010.

Formal notice of this extension can be found in our 'Notice of extension on the Unified Contract' document located on the right hand side of this page, together with a guidance document.

The new 2010 Standard Civil Contract will now come into force on 15 November 2010. Organisations will need to be awarded the new contract to carry out any new civil controlled and licensed work from 15 November 2010.

The immigration and asylum success rate

See the office schedule for this: where we have funded representation before the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal a minimum success rate of 40% combined and 35% in respect of asylum and immigration cases respectively is required.

Standard Terms

See Documents for these. The main changes include:

a more efficient way of working by issuing one contract per organisation rather than one per office
new provisions about e-business and equality and diversity
new Payment on Account provisions as agreed with the representative bodies
setting a minimum and maximum number of new cases to be started by an individual office each year.

Specifications

Our Unified Contract Specification is under Documents and covers:

General
Family Category Specific
Immigration Category Specific
Miscellaneous Category Specific
the Payment Annex.

The 1 Apr 07 Specification still applies to matters and cases opened in the Mental Health Category of Law.

The Specification brings into effect civil fee schemes from 1 Oct 07 (1 Jan 08 for Mental Health). A new Funding Order and certain Funding Code and regulation changes support the changes to the fee schemes.

Not-for Profit transitional provisions

These transitional provisions apply to all NfP providers who previously carried out work under NfP Specifications. They are in the Documents panel.

Other specifications

See Documents for the:

Family Mediation Specification
Mental Health Category Specific Specification

Family Mediation applies to all solicitor and NfP providers and brings into force new fee schemes. Mental Health sets out the criteria for:

the various levels of service
mental health specific rules for the new fee scheme.

For more information

Please see Documents for:

all contract information
equality and diversity guidance

Visit the Pay rates and schemes pages for details of remuneration.

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Last updated: 21 October 2011