What's new

To ensure best quality and best value for the most expensive criminal legal aid cases, we established a very high cost cases (crime) panel due to run till Jul 09.

We believe this panel offers real benefits to those signed up to it. They have the first opportunity to take on work worth in excess of £100m a year.

A working group for an alternative payment schemes

We are working with the Ministry of Justice, Bar Council and The Law Society on future alternative payment schemes for these cases. We're pleased with the progress being made.

A consultation paper is expected later this year. Minutes of the group are on the CDS > Crime contracts pages.

A balanced package of reforms

The modest reduction in very high cost case rates of £4m for 2008-09 (11.5%) on previous rates was part of a balanced package of reforms to put the legal aid budget as a whole on a sustainable footing. This was well understood by the Bar.

Overall the Bar got a fair deal from Lord Carter’s review of legal aid procurement. 

Lord Carter recommended a significant increase in the fees paid to barristers in all Crown Court cases, particularly in the shorter cases to benefit the junior Bar, which was implemented in April 2007.

The net increase to the Bar overall, even with the modest reduction in VHCC rates, represents an increase of £24m (or 9%) for all Crown Court work.

Background to these cases

Very high cost cases (VHCCs) are those estimated to last more than 40 days at trial. We've managed them under contract by the LSC since 2001. We introduced new arrangements in response to the rapidly growing expenditure incurred in long and complex cases.

Last year there were about 400 defendants funded by legal aid in 100 VHCC criminal cases at a total cost of £100 million.

Defence teams are typically paid around £400,000 for such cases but costs in some, such as the Jubilee Line Fraud case, have run into several millions.

To put this in context, last year the LSC funded advice and representation for nearly 1.6m defendants. About 120,000 of these were in Crown Court cases.

The cost of VHCC cases was approximately 9% of the criminal legal aid budget. VHCC crime expenditure was £105m out of total legal aid expenditure of £1.2bn for criminal representation.

What are the rates of pay?

Under the new scheme for preparation work a Queen's Counsel (QC’s) fees will range from £91 to £145 an hour.

For a leading junior, the range is £79 to £127 an hour. A junior acting alone will receive between £70 and £100 an hour.

For time spent in court, a QC will get £476 a day, a leading junior will get £390 and a junior acting alone £285.