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Criminal Defence Service (CDS)- Quality and performance
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- Improving your quality
Improving your quality
On this page:
- About these guides
- What guides are available?
- Launch of the new 'Improving your Quality' Generic Guide
- Improving quality workshops
- Workshops update
About these guides
The Peer Review process provides a unique opportunity to access a wealth of information directly related to the quality of legal advice and information given to clients. It identifies areas of good practice and areas in need of improvement.
The guides are intended to give the profession access to Peer Review findings and help support those wishing to achieve the highest levels of quality of legal advice by identifying common quality issues found by category specific Peer Review panels. This information is derived from the entire body of Peer Review reports.
These suggestions for making improvements are not an exhaustive list; they are only some of the ways that improvements can be made. An organisation may have other ways of resolving the issues raised in each individual guide and it is not our intention to invalidate those approaches.
What guides are available?
The following guides are available:
- Crime - Second Edition
- Debt - Second Edition
- Employment - Second Edition
- Family - Second Edition
- Generic - First Edition
- Housing - Second Edition
- Immigration - Second Edition
- Mental Health - Second Edition
- Welfare Benefits - Second Edition
The guides are reviewed periodically and are available to view or download under the heading Documents on the right hand side of this page. If you have any queries or require further information on Improving Quality Initiatives please send an e-mail to either Emma Boniface or to Grazia Trivedi.
Launch of the new 'Improving your Quality' Generic Guide
The 'Improving your Quality' Generic Guide has been produced with a focus on the areas of law where a category specific guide isn’t available. Based on peer review reports from a range of categories it aims, like the other guides in the series, to help improve the quality standard of legal aid work.
It may be of particular interest to trainee lawyers, but people at all levels may find it useful. The issues that are set out in this guide have been derived from an analysis of reports written in the following areas of law: Action Against the Police, Clinical Negligence, Community Care, Education and Public Law. The Generic Guide can be found in the Documents section on the right hand side of this page.
Improving quality workshops
Improving quality workshops delivered by Independent Peer Reviewers provide a great opportunity to:
- Promote and share good practice through the findings of Peer Review;
- Enable delegates to gain an understanding of the issues affecting quality;
- Assist delegates by helping them to understand how they can improve the quality of their work;
- Learn from the Independent Peer Reviewers who will lead the workshops.
All material used during the workshops is prepared by a group of Independent Peer Reviewers and agreed by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
Workshops update
The workshops were a useful training tool and have the potential to promote quality in the profession. However we will not be running any more for the foreseeable future.
Organisations that are interested in attending any future workshops should contact qualitymark@legalservices.gov.uk and if there is sufficient interest we will run further sessions.
The workshop materials remain available to view and download and can be found under the Documents heading on the right hand side of this page. They are:
- Slides Presentation – Crime
- Slides Presentation – Crime, Seven Steps to Competence Plus
- Slides Presentation – Debt
- Slides Presentation – Employment
- Slides Presentation – Family
- Slides Presentation – Housing
- Slides Presentation – Immigration
- Slides Presentation – Welfare Benefits
- Mock Case Studies – Crime
- Mock Case Studies – Family
- Preparing for Peer Review
Last updated: 11 July 2007