Press Release
Nearly all civil legal aid providers commit to new contracts
3 April 2007
The Legal Services Commission today announced that 94% of law firms and 97% of not-for-profit agencies had signed new civil legal aid contracts and will be continuing to provide civil legal aid services.
LSC Chief Executive Carolyn Regan welcomed the very high level of response from legal aid providers:
“This means that legal aid clients can be confident of continued access to civil legal aid services across England and Wales,” she said.
The LSC had extended the deadline for returning the new Unified Civil Legal Aid Contracts from 5pm last Friday to 5pm yesterday.
To protect the interests of clients, the LSC has authorised firms who have chosen not to sign the contract to continue with existing cases. However, they will not be able to accept new legal aid cases.
Civil legal aid includes advice and representation for people with family law, welfare benefits, debt, housing and domestic violence problems. The new contract does not cut the legal aid budget. The current £2.1 billion budget for criminal and civil advice and representation will be maintained. The contract is part of wider reforms that will ensure a greater proportion of current expenditure is available for civil legal aid.
Carolyn Regan said:
“I recognise that change is always challenging – but the reforms are specifically about ensuring access to legal aid for the future, and achieving best value for money so that increasing numbers of people can receive help. We need to work together with providers to achieve this.
“Everyone involved in legal aid agrees that it plays a fundamental role in social and legal justice and protecting the rights of vulnerable people. This principle is central to the LSC’s work.
“The reforms will offer fair reward for good quality, efficient service providers, and I would personally like to thank the committed legal aid firms and agencies who acknowledged this by returning their contracts early.
“I wrote to civil providers last week to encourage those who had not already signed the new unified contract to do so and to correct what we saw as unbalanced advice from The Law Society. Contrary to some claims, there was no threat to recoup money paid for ongoing cases. In fact, I specifically stated that providers could continue with existing cases. The only exception would be when this was not in the interests of the legal aid client or taxpayers’ money was being put at risk. The letter said they could not take on new work without a current legal aid contract. This is not unreasonable - given the contract is our way of ensuring the quality of legal aid services and accountability for public funds.”
The LSC will soon release details of a new civil bid round to allocate new cases, as well as the cases of those providers who have chosen not to sign the unified contract. It is wrong for the Legal Aid Practitioners Group to interpret this as a threat to those who have signed new contracts, rather it will be an opportunity for them to bid for new business.
The legal aid reforms will move payment for services from a traditional system of hourly rates to one of best value tendering based on quality, capacity and price. To allow providers time to adapt their businesses to a market-based approach, there will be a transition period where they will be paid fixed and graduated fees for different types of work.
It is a natural progression from the legal aid contracts first introduced in 2000. The unified contract is in many respects identical or very similar to the existing terms, with key amendments to pave the way for the reform programme.
The unified contract will bring conditions for not-for-profit advisers into line with solicitors who carry out civil legal aid work, a concept supported by most respondents to the 2006 consultation Legal Aid: a sustainable future.
It will give legal aid clients greater quality assurances, by setting higher entry standards for providers. In return, providers will be rewarded with greater autonomy and less ongoing auditing.
Because the LSC will only be issuing one contract per organisation rather than one per office, as had previously been the case, it will create a more efficient way of working with our high quality service providers. It will enable the LSC to set a minimum number of new cases to be started by an individual office each year as well as a maximum. This will allow the LSC to ensure adequate provision of services to meet the needs of vulnerable clients in a specified area.
The unified contract will also create efficiencies by requiring all providers to work with us via e-business, reducing administration time and costs for them and the LSC. It will introduce new equality and diversity provisions, which are of real benefit to legal aid clients, the LSC and our providers.
The Law Society has raised concerns about the LSC having the ability to amend and terminate the contract. The LSC has had powers of amendment and termination in its contracts since 2000. The new unified contract has kept the same periods of consultation and notice as existing contracts but introduced a new basis for using them, namely in order to reform the legal aid scheme. Given our statutory duties to establish, maintain and develop the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, to ensure quality of service to clients and value for public funds, the LSC considers these are reasonable and necessary provisions.
Media contact
Gary Spink, LSC Press Office: 020 7759 0493 or 07843 643052
Last updated: 03 April 2007