Press Release
Criminal Defence Service Reforms
12 February 2007
Consultations on a package of legal aid reforms offering improved services for clients, better value for taxpayers and more certainty for criminal defence solicitors are being launched by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) today.
The suggested reforms follow a broader consultation on changes to the legal aid scheme in England and Wales and are designed to start the transition to a system of best value tendering based on quality, capacity and price. The key proposals include:
- Introducing fixed fees to control legal aid costs for representing clients in police stations. These fees will be more sensitive to local conditions and will be structured to account for the differences in providing services in rural and urban areas. The fees will benefit the majority of firms who undertake police station work.
- Creating new police station boundary areas whereby a number of boundary areas, especially in urban areas, would increase in size.
- Setting up a specialist panel of defence teams of solicitors and barristers through a best value tender to handle around 100 new high cost criminal cases (those where the trial is expected to last for 41 days or more) a year, that currently account for approximately 5% of the overall legal aid budget. By concentrating the expertise in fewer firms, the LSC expects to improve the quality and value for money of the work done on these more complex cases.
- After a successful pilot, we aim to expand Criminal Defence Service Direct, to provide telephone advice to all clients detained in police stations for minor offences. All calls would in future be routed through the existing Duty Solicitor Call Centre straight to CDS Direct.
The LSC will also introduce a number of measures to ensure market stability in legal aid services in police stations between now and October. These measures have previously been consulted on and include:
- Freezing entry to duty solicitor schemes from 1 April. Slots for the revised scheme in October would be based on the historical volume of cases carried out by firms within a given police station boundary area.
- Ensuring high quality by requiring that a designated fee earner undertake 50% of magistrates court work. Designated fee earners are either an employee of a firm or a representative who receives supervision and training from that firm.
- Assisting service providers to make the transition to these new arrangements by allowing accredited representatives to undertake duty work.
Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive of the Legal Services Commission, said:
“The Legal Services Commission is keen to listen to the views of interested parties on the proposed reforms. They are designed to benefit clients by ensuring that they receive the highest quality legal advice they are entitled to, benefit criminal defence service providers by allowing them to plan their business with greater confidence and benefit taxpayers by ensuring that public funds are spent in the most cost effective manner.”
The police station boundary consultation and the very high cost criminal cases consultation will end on 10 April and 23 March 2007 respectively. The CDS Direct consultation will be launched early March and will run for 6 weeks.
All the consultations along with full details of the outcome of the market stability consultation can be found on the LSC website under CDS> Consultations.
ENDS
Media information:
Dan Kellingley Tel: 020 7759 0415
Notes to editors:
The outcome of the original consultation on legal aid reforms is set out in Legal Aid Reform: The Way Ahead. A media summary of this is available from the LSC Press Office.
Copies of Legal Aid Reform: The Way Ahead are also available from the LSC’s website.
Last updated: 12 February 2007