A clear way forward

On this page:

Way forward agreed
The agreement at a glance
Addressing areas of concern
A routemap for civil legal aid reform
About the judgment
For more information

Way forward agreed

The LSC, The Law Society and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) have agreed a way forward for the legal aid reform programme. This was negotiated following the Court of Appeal’s judgment on our Unified Contract.

This will ensure a period of certainty and stability for providers of legal aid. See Documents for the agreement.

Negotiations with the Law Society started in Nov 07. As a result of these constructive, collaborative talks we and the MoJ publicly announced that we accept the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

We also reached agreement with The Law Society on the way forward. The Law Society agreed not to pursue further litigation on this issue.

The agreement at a glance

As part of the agreement, the LSC and MoJ have agreed to:

targeted increases in some of the fees in the civil fee schemes already introduced
not introduce full implementation of best value tendering for mainstream civil legal aid services until 2013, with pilots proposed in some areas between 2010 and 2013
delay until July 2009 the introduction of any best value tendering scheme for criminal defence services that may be introduced following a recent consultation
make new arrangements in respect of historic unrecouped payments on account (meaning payments on account made at least 6 years ago)
provide for the right to undertake Remainder Work on the no fault termination of a contract
make new provisions for the reconciliation of Standard Monthly Payments (SMPs) designed to keep changes to a minimum
not implement further family fee changes for solicitors until April 2010.

See Documents for an 'at a glance' pullout on the detail of the agreement.

Addressing areas of concern

The agreements also looks at issues legal aid providers are concerned about. We have set up two working groups to address:

quality assurance
the Contract Compliance Audit process.

A routemap for civil legal aid reform

We have published a route map for the civil reform programme.

Many of the proposals in this paper will be subject to consultation and constructive dialogue with representative bodies and others. However by publishing this timeline and outline principles civil legal aid providers will be able to plan for the future with greater security.

This route map needs to be read in the context of other publications, particularly the:

CLS and Family Strategies
review by Lord Carter of Coles published in July 2006
subsequent consultation and post consultation papers on the implementation of fixed fees.

See Documents for the paper and a visual guide.

About the judgment

The Court of Appeal found in favour of The Law Society’s arguments that one of the amendment powers in the Unified Contract does not comply with 2006 European regulations on public contracts.

We regret that we did not recognise the implications of those regulations at an earlier stage.

The judgment will affect the contractual relationship between the LSC and providers in future:

contracts need to be clear about the conditions that will apply throughout the term of the contract
amendment clauses cannot be too wide
we will need to take account of public procurement law.

This means that:

contracts might be for shorter periods in future
each time new contracts are offered, the procurement process will be open to new bidders as well as existing contract holders.

For more information

See Documents for:

index of agreemeent
deed of settlement
joint statement
'at a glance' guide to the agreement
routemap for civil legal aid.

Visit the CLS > Pay rates and schemes pages for rates of pay.

Visit the CLS > The Unified Contract pages for more detail about the contract.

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Last updated: 28 May 2008