General Criminal Contract (Jan 08)

On this page:

Notice of Amendment
About the application process
A summary of the changes

Notice of Amendment

We sent a Notice of Amendment to the General Criminal Contract (January 2008) to all crime providers w/c 14 Apr 08.

Unfortunately, due to a handling error, the Revised Annex referred to in the Notice was not attached.

We intend to resend the Notice in full to all crime providers over the next few days. Meanwhile you can view or download it from the Documents panel.

About the application process

We held an application process for the General Criminal Contract (Jan 08).

See Documents for the Contract, Duty Solicitor Arrangements and Frequently Asked Questions.

Visit the CDS>Tenders pages to read more about the application process.

A summary of the changes

Police station fees

From January, we will no longer pay for attendances on an hourly rates basis. This will be replaced by a system of localised fixed fees.

Fee levels are based on average claims in each area for the 2006/7 financial year. They are sensitive to local conditions and practice and reflect the costs of providing services in their respective areas.

Expensive cases that qualify as exceptional will continue to be paid hourly rates, eg:

terrorism
major drugs cases where suspects are often held by the police for considerable periods.

Defence Solicitor Call Centre

From 14 January, the CDS Direct’s Defence Solicitor Call Centre will handle the first stage of all ‘own solicitor’ requests.

An ‘own solicitor’ case is one in which the suspect requests representation by a particular solicitor who has a contract with us to carry out legal aid work.

The call centre adviser will contact the named solicitor to carry out the next stage of representation. If they can’t make contact within two hours, they will ask a duty solicitor to represent the client instead.

This change will allow us to better control costs and will give us robust management information that will support the operation of the fixed fee scheme.

Criminal Defence Service (CDS) Direct

Subject to changes to PACE Codes, from 1 February, all telephone only advice cases in the Greater Manchester, West Midlands and West Yorkshire criminal justice areas will be forwarded to CDS Direct to provide the advice.

National roll-out starts on 21 Apr 08.

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Last updated: 15 April 2008