Magistrates' court

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Revised standard fees
Next steps
Means testing in the magistrates’ court

Revised standard fees

On 16 April 2007 we introduced revised standard fees in 16 main urban areas.

Read more on the CDS>Pay rates and schemes pages.

Next steps

We will assess the revised fee scheme and further investigate travel and waiting issues affecting magistrates’ courts. We will then decide whether the scheme should be extended beyond the 16 urban areas.

We expect to decide this in late summer 2007 and to make any further changes to the scheme in October 2007.

Benefits

The revised fee scheme creates incentives for firms to increase their efficiency and work more locally. It also allows them to benefit from efficiencies they are able to make.

Making standard payments for travel and waiting increases:

certainty of income for firms
certainty of expenditure for the LSC.

The revised fees will also save at least £8m in a full year from the 16 urban areas. This will contribute to the savings we need to make from criminal legal aid as part of our transformation programme.

Best value tendering

Magistrates’ courts policy is part of our crime change programme. We will introduce best value tendering for this work from October 2008.

Magistrates’ court revised fees will help prepare the market for tendering. It allows firms to better realise the cost of working in their local areas, preparing them to submit bids.

Means testing in the magistrates’ court

In October 2006 we re-introduced means testing for legal aid in the magistrates’ court.

Visit the Criminal legal aid eligibility pages to read more.

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Last updated: 26 October 2007