The BVT pilot decision could spell trouble for the LSC
Monday 21 December 2009 by Rachel Rothwell
It is telling that last week’s announcement to scrap the best-value tendering pilots in Manchester and Avon and Somerset came from the Ministry of Justice, not the Legal Services Commission. At a time when the two bodies seem to be increasingly at odds, the MoJ has decided to step in at the eleventh hour to pull the plug on a project that was central to the LSC’s strategy for what it would call delivering value for money from suppliers (some lawyers might have another name for it).
It was also a project that the LSC had devoted a heck of a lot of man hours and cash towards.
Speaking to the Gazette, Lord Bach made it pretty clear that the decision to abandon the pilot had come from him rather than the LSC. He said he was not convinced the pilots were in line with what Lord Carter had envisaged in his review, particularly as they coincided with the current consultation on Crown court fees. ‘[Firms] could argue that they didn’t know the full picture when putting in bids,’ he said. ‘That was a view that played with me quite a bit.’
But before criminal law solicitors start thinking of Bach as their knight in shining armour – as if – he was quick to emphasise that while this battle might be lost, the war was far from over. ‘Anyone who thinks we’re abandoning BVT is quite wrong,’ he said.
The LSC did not put out a press release as such on the decision, but it did issue a statement from chief executive Carolyn Regan, in which she was at pains to point out that the commission is not backing down on tendering. Quite the opposite. ‘The decision [clearly not her own] not to go ahead with the BVT pilots announced in July 2009 presents the opportunity to develop a more ambitious programme of competitive tendering for England and Wales,’ she said.
And the financial resources spent on it have not gone to waste, of course: ‘The considerable work already undertaken in preparation for the pilots puts us in a strong position to develop new proposals in conjunction with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice and the legal professions.’
That’s as maybe. But the MoJ clearly wasn’t too impressed with the way the legal aid quango put together the Manchester and Avon and Somerset pilots.
Whether this or any other government will trust it with the management of an even larger-scale project – Bach did hint to the Gazette in October that he may set up another body to handle the delivery of legal aid alongside the LSC – remains to be seen. Perhaps this time it is not just the legal profession which is left wondering what will befall it next.
Comments
anybody who thinks the 14%
anybody who thinks the 14% cut in the criminal rates is the end, ought to get their heads out of the sand. the post 2010 departmental spending limits for the m.o.j. are yet to be published. today we've seen the devastating cuts in the university budget@ the department of business, innovation and skills-a favoured department.
there's a large snowball rolling down towards legal aid practitioners.
The BVT Pilot
This is just like what happened with CPT for London, years ago.
The problem is that the MoJ/LSC believes that there are too many lawyers able and willing to undertake legal aid work. The belief is that a reduction in this number will help reduce costs. They believe this because , when asked, Solicitors have said "yes, we could take on more work".
Its a bit like blaming doctors for the rise in sick patients. "Less doctors equals less sick patients, right?"
"Wait a minute, less doctors means less people to treat the sick patients. Yikes, our policy is flawed. What we need to do is to identify fewer patients. Let's change the definition of "sick"."
I suspect the cuts for legal aid will come through limiting access to justice and redefining eligibility for legal aid so as to reduce that number. Less people qualifying for legal aid (through stricter merits and financial eligibility tests) means a reduction in legal aid spending.
To achieve this will require a proper analysis of the Justice systems, a proper analysis of how those systems are funded (ie how much and from which departmental budget) and a proper analysis of the funding of access to those systems.
Getting rid of the LSC does not achieve those aims-after all it would be a bit churlish, a bit like stabbing an old friend in the back whilst smiling at them, for the MoJ to blame the LSC for attempting to deliver the (flawed) policy created by the MoJ and its predecessoir the Lord Chancellor's Department. It would be totally inconceivable that politicians would seek to deflect blame, for a ridiculous policy, from themselves onto the civil servants??!!
The beginning of the end?
I'm sorry Michael -- I would like to think you are right but sadly I think that regardless of any economic logic, this government (and probably the next one as well) will see solicitors as the easy target for cuts. Given a choice of reducing legal aid eligibility or cutting rates of pay to solicitors (whom the government continue to betray to the public as fat cats) the latter is likely to be seen the easy option. Eligibility may well be cut -- but only after solicitors have seen their own rates of pay cut and cut again.