CDS News

A timetable is now available for the tenders of the new 2010 civil and criminal legal aid contracts.

Civil

Following the postponement we announced back on 31 July 2009 we extended the current Civil Contracts for six months (see CLS News below). Current contracts will now come to an end on 30 September 2010.

1 October 2010

The new civil legal aid contract will come into effect on 1 October 2010.

In order to be able to carry out any new civil legal aid work from October 2010, organisations will need to bid for a new contract.

The bid round for immigration is intended to start in the week beginning 30 November 2009.

The bid round for all other civil work is planned for the week beginning 8 February 2010.

When the bid rounds open, information for applicants and details of how to apply will be available on the tender pages of our website.

Seven week window

Both bid rounds will be open for a period of seven weeks. However, the LSC will seek to allow additional time on the immigration bid round to take account of the Christmas period.  

The LSC is running the immigration tender earlier to ease the pressure of running all civil bid rounds at the same time.

This will also allow sufficient time to consider bids for immigration work on offer. This includes Immigration Removal Centre work as well as standard face-to-face advice.

Crime 

The tender for crime contracts to include duty solicitor work in Best Value Tendering pilot areas is planned to begin in the week beginning 4 January 2010. The national non-BVT tender for all other crime contracts starts a week later.

Both will be open for a period of four weeks. The auction stage of the BVT application process is due to take place in March 2010, with face to face training by the auction provider for applicants invited to this stage scheduled for February.

The new criminal legal aid contract comes into effect in July 2010. 

Further information

LSC website: CLS News

LSC website: Civil Bid Rounds for 2010 contracts

LSC website: Unified Contract (Civil) 2010-2013

LSC website: Civil contracts for 2010 (for procurement plans)

LSC website: Crime consultations

LSC website: Press Releases

Civil email questions: civilreform@legalservices.gov.uk

Crime email questions: stephen.oconnor@legalservices.gov.uk