Legal aid warning over contract allocation
Legal aid firms may go out of business as a result of the allocation of work for new civil legal aid contracts, representative groups have warned.
The Legal Services Commission notified firms last week of the outcome of tenders for family, housing and debt, and immigration, which will begin in April.
The commission said there was ‘significant demand’ for the work, with providers bidding for more than double the number of cases, or matter starts, available.
In immigration, there were 506 bidders, compared with the 225 existing contract holders. For the matter starts, providers submitted requests for a total of 140,424, more than three times as many as the 40,831 on offer.
Housing attracted 828 bidders, up from 533 current suppliers. Suppliers bid for 146,820 matter starts, against the 51,889 available.
Due to the high demand, many providers were awarded only the ‘guaranteed volume of work’, which is 61 matter starts in family, and 100 in housing and immigration.
The Law Society’s head of legal aid Richard Miller said the way contracts have been allocated raises ‘serious concerns’ about the potential impact on the financial health of firms, particularly asylum specialists.
‘Some firms are being allocated significantly less work than they need to be economically viable,’ he said. ‘Some firms – good providers – might even fail as a result.’
Miller said the Law Society had urged the LSC to issue licence contracts, which would allow firms to undertake as much work as they can attract, instead of matter starts, which he said artificially cap the amount of work firms can do and force them to pass on work to competitors.
Carol Storer, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, said: ‘The result of the tenders is likely to make it extremely difficult for many practitioners, particularly in larger and medium-sized firms doing immigration, to run a viable practice.’
She predicted that while some firms will decide it is not financially viable to accept the contracts, and decline them before April, others will accept them and realise later in the year that they cannot make them pay.
‘It will be a very volatile market this year,’ she warned.
Comments
It would seem the LSC are
It would seem the LSC are trying to put their usual 'spin' on the situation.
'In immigration, there were 506 bidders, compared with the 225 existing contract holders'
I very much doubt there has been more than double the numbers of bidders. There has been an increase in the number of BIDS (not bidders) because the tendering system made it clear that if you bid from only one office you would be at a serious disadvantage.
Having read how the limited number of starts were to be allocated (by lots) most organisations have made bids from each of their branch offices.
We have always operated our contracts from one office but given the nature of the tender we were forced to prepare a bid from our branch office too.
The usual MOJ / LSC farce when it comes to procurement! What happened to competition on the grounds of quality and client choice?
LSC Contract Allocation
So Oliver Twist & Co bid for some more gruel because it so enjoyed the first bowl?
Legal Aid
In the interests of transparency is the winners list being published? Isn't this the normal process now in tenders?
In England are LA's now publishing the invoices [over £500] from lawyers who represent them in care/other proceedings?
Have the judiciary written any whinging letters on behalf of the losing lawyers? - as they did in 2010.
The question not being asked is why is it necessary for taxpayers money to make a practice viable?
LSC Contract allocation
Winners! - getting a legal aid contract - this is the reality - legal aid work loses money for most firms who don't realize this because the same firms and fee earners also do private work which subsidizes the legal aid work. They have done the work because they considered they had a public duty to do so. Proper access to justice has been destroyed by the effective withdrawal of public funding from family work which will lead to chaos in the courts and people including children who badly need public funding being left to their own devices. Don't give me your drivel about taxpayers money being spent to make a practice viable. It is about basic standards, living in a civilized society and making sure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected and have access to justice.
Family Legal Aid Tender
The LSC/MoJ is obsessed with the notion that too many legal aid lawyers drives up the cost of legal aid. You may recall Jack Straw making that assertion. The LSC/MoJ fails to understand that legal aid should be widely available, conducted by firms with specialist knowledge perhaps, who will conduct the case in the best interests of the client and thereafter be paid a fair fee for the work.
Legal aid is restricted.
The fee is extremely low.
My firm has given up the legal aid habit. We were tired of having to conduct cases for such a small fee and to have to justify what we had done several years later when someone from the LSC would turn up and second guess our conduct of the case.
The Fee for 1 private client divorce file equates to 4 if not more equivalent legal aid files.
When the firm was established in 1998 we had 10 Franchises. We now have one legal aid contract for crime and prison law.
The LSC/MoJ will spin the new family tender to make it sound like nothing has changed as far as the number of legal aid firms are concerned.
The truth, however is quite clear to see.
One night, with a glass of Chablis or Irish Malt in hand think back to when you qualified as a Solicitor and count up the firms in your locality who undertook family legal aid.
Now bring yourself forward to 30 April 2013. How many firms will be offering family legal aid?
And when the Law Society says that Solicitors should fill the gap and act pro bono for those who cannot access Justice I say: " Your meely mouthed, kowtow-ing approach to successive Governments has allowed legal aid to be shredded to bits. If you want to act pro bono for someone then why don't you spend time away from Chancery Lane doing exactly that. Meantime, I and my colleagues shall try to earn an income so we and our families can survive."
For those firms still committed to legal aid I have some admiration, but mostly I fear that you are the equivalent of the drug addict who cannot see how bad your dependency has become.
Lagal aid.
AMRobinson,
Three years ago my local shoppy in NE12 had three firms offering a full range of legal aid services. Now there are none. Says it all!
t