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- Unified Contract (Crime) July 2008
Unified Contract (Crime) July 2008
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About this contract
The Unified Contract (Crime) July 2008 came into effect at 00:01 on 14 July 2008.
The Standard Terms are closely based on those for civil providers. We've amended and updated them for crime providers.
The Specification is largely unchanged from the Specification in the General Criminal Contract (January 2008) but we've reordered it to make it easy to understand and work with.
See the Documents panel for:
- the Specification
- a clause-by-clause tracker to map each clause to the previous General Criminal Contract.
What we've changed following consultation
We had a full consultation with The Law Society on all the contract documents. We've incorporated a number of their further suggestions.
Key changes include:
- we have agreed a new SMP Reconcilliation Protocol for managing Standard Monthly Payments that will give providers more certainty and stability in their monthly payments
- we have introduced new provisions on remainder work, including a presumption that providers may continue remainder work for up to two years following termination of the contract (unless terminated for breach)
- we have removed the requirement for providers to record travel costs/time in relation to matters and cases which are paid by fixed fees
- we have removed the automatic financial penalties for claims which are submitted more than three months late (although it is still a contractual requirement to submit claims on time).
Our powers to amend the contract are now limited to:
- changes arising out of external developments in the law or the justice system
- minor changes
- with the agreement of The Law Society, correcting ambiguities, errors and omissions.
Other changes
We consulted on a number of other changes. We have agreed that, for the Unified Contract (Crime) July 2008:
- there will be no change to the way in which Duty Solicitor Slots are allocated
- we will not introduce a new performance requirement for Panel and Back-up Duty Call Acceptance
- we will not introduce Audit KPIs
- we will not introduce re-accreditation of Duty Solicitors.
For more information
See the Documents panel on the right hand side of this page for:
- Contract Standard Terms
- Annex to Standard Terms
- Office Schedule
- Contract Specification
- Boundary Maps
- Guidance
- Duty Solicitor Arrangements 2008
- Schedule of Duty Solicitor Scheme Rules
- Standard monthly payments
We held an application process for the Unified Contract (Crime) July 08.
For more information relating to the Standard Monthly Payment Protocol, please visit the Civil Contracting reconciliation pages.
The consultation documents are also available to read.
Last updated: 16 July 2008