London Criminal Competitive Tendering (LCCT)

Progress

We launched a 17 week consultation 'Improving Value for Money for Publicly Funded Criminal Defence Services in London', on 28 January 2005.

In summary the consultation paper proposed:

a two stage bid process based first on quality then on price
London to be divided into a series of bid zones
firms to bid a price per case and for a percentage of duty solicitor slots within a bid zone
firms to be paid for the case rather than by the hour.

The consultation paper is under the Related Documents panel on this page.

We received our highest ever response to a consultation: 350 responses from representative bodies, solicitors' firms and other interested parties.

Around 250 solicitors also attended a series of workshops that gave practitioners a chance to directly engage with us on the proposals.

The key responses from representative groups, along with a list of all the responses received, are under Related Documents on this page.

A report on our analysis of the consultation responses is also available from the Related Documents section.

Lord Carter of Coles is undertaking a Review of Legal Aid Procurement. He has recommended that his proposals replace our plans for London Competitive Tendering.

We have sent the responses to the consultation and our analysis to Lord Carter. He is expected to publish his final recommendations in late Spring.

For more information

The key responses from representative groups, along with a list of all the responses received, are under Related Documents on this page. To obtain copies of any of the 350 responses to the LCT consultation, please contact David Szaroleta (020 7759 0307).

Details of the volume and value of work reported under the General Criminal Contract in police stations and at magistrates' courts across London from January-December 2004 can be found in the Criminal Contract Data subpage of this section.