A market based approach

On this page:

What is best value tendering?
Encouraging efficiency
A fairer and more sustainable system
For more information

What is best value tendering?

We have used the term ‘best value tendering’ as it shows that price and quality must both be at the heart of any new system.

The outline competitive tendering process we set out would be based on three core principles: quality, capacity and price:

Quality would be the first and most important step, with all providers needing to achieve a Peer Review rating of at least 3 to be able to bid for work.

Providers would then need to demonstrate that they have the capacity and ability to offer the required level of client access as well as a well-run and financially stable business.

Finally, competitive tendering would take place on the basis of price.

Encouraging efficiency

A market-based system should:

encourage greater efficiency among providers
be more efficient to administer
create a market where practitioners can make a reasonable return on their investments.

The procurement of professional services, including legal services, through market-based mechanisms is common around the world.

A fairer and more sustainable system

We believe that setting prices through a competitive process instead of the LSC setting them administratively would result in a fairer and more sustainable system.

In a competitive market we anticipate that:

the price of services could go up in some areas where the inherent cost of delivering them is high
in others it could go down because the services can be delivered at lower cost.

In simple terms, the market will set the rate based on local circumstances.

For more information

We are carrying out a first consultation on both the basic principle and the possible outline design of a best value tendering process for criminal legal aid services.

Depending on the responses to this consultation, we would then carry out a second consultation during 2008.

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Last updated: 10 December 2007