CDS News

We are now consulting over the amendments to the Unified Contract and Crime Specification necessary to support the national Virtual Court pilot. The consultation documents can be found on this website. 

The pilot will begin in 2009 and will last a year. It will be led by the Office of Criminal Justice Reform and will involve all agencies in the criminal justice system.

The LSC's role is to ensure that defendants who choose to participate in the Virtual Court process have access to legal advice and representation throughout.

What is a Virtual Court hearing?

In a Virtual Court hearing the defendant stays in the police station and within 3 hours of being charged is linked by video to the court. Documents are shared by an electronic file sharing system.

To enable this we are proposing the introduction of a Virtual Court Fixed Fee (£150 + VAT during office hours and £180 + VAT out of office hours) for defence solicitors. The fee will be delivered through Advocacy Assistance - a non-means tested form of legal aid, which will be limited to Virtual Court hearings.

We believe the proposed fee is fair because:

• It gives solicitors who take part an opportunity to claim both the police station fixed fee and the Virtual Court fixed fee for a single police station attendance of between four and six hours. The case would be disposed of within a single day
• It gives solicitors an opportunity to access additional work as the client funding is not means tested, nor subject to the Interests of Justice test
• It gives solicitors the opportunity to acquire new ‘own clients’
• There are potential efficiency savings for defence firms.

We have written to around 400 providers in the pilot area – South East and Central London - inviting them to express interest in joining the pilot scheme. Expressions of interest should be returned to us by 31 October.

The consultation closing date is 20 November. LSC will publish its response on 12 December.