Crime contracts for 2010

Update - 9 July 2010

We have today published duty rotas for each police station and court duty solicitor scheme in England and Wales for contracts that commence on 14 July 2010.

You will be aware that we have received numerous queries after we published earlier draft versions of scheme membership lists. We have tried to address the issues raised in the queries we have received, and reflected the necessary changes in the rotas published today. However, where we have received queries in the last few days we may not have managed to do this.

In producing these rotas we have also received numerous enqueries regarding the distribution of slots to members of the rota. These rotas have been produced based on random distribution of slots. We are aware that, in some instances, this has led to some inequitable distribution.

We are committed to ensuring that no provider loses out because of either of these issues. We also want to avoid further re-issues of rotas so close to the contract start date*. We have therefore taken the decision that we will reissue all rotas in 3 months time.

This reissue will address two areas:

outstanding queries on scheme membership
where fewer slots have been allocated to individual firms than should been due to the random distribution of slots.

We will compensate any provider that has not been allocated the slots they are entitled to in the first 3 months of the rota by giving extra slots in the second 3 months.

We will also change the way in which slots are allocated in the future to ensure an equitable distribution.

We apologise unreservedly for the confusion and disruption caused by the errors in rotas any by issuing the rotas so close to the contracts commencing. We would like to thank all those who have written to us about the Draft Duty Solicitor Scheme lists. If any providers have remaining concerns with their own scheme membership, as set out in the lists, they should record this via the following email address: dutysolqueries@legalservices.gsi.gov.uk.

Please note you do not need to notify us where you feel you have not been given an equitable number of slots due to issues with random distribution. We will do this calculation for all providers.

The rotas are shown on the right hand side of this page, and are divided alphabetically. Please open the appropriate sheet and scroll across the tabs on the bottom to find the rota you are looking for. Please note that for some we have published individal rotas in pdf format.

*We are however planning to reissue the following rotas on Monday 12 July 2010 as we are aware that they are missing some important information:

Barnstable Saturday court

Bingley court rota

Brighton police station

Dewsbury Saturday court

Hatfield remand court

Leicester police station and court

Rochdale Saturday court

Sheffield court

2010 Standard Crime Contracts tender is now closed

The current Unified Criminal Contract will expire at midnight on 13 July 2010. The tender for the replacement - the 2010 Standard Crime Contract- has now closed, and the new contracts will run from 14 July 2010 for a three-year term (subject to early termination or extension by up to two years).

Last updated: 14 July 2010