LSC delays payments due to ‘cash position’ problems
The Legal Services Commission notified the Law Society today that it will be delaying payments to solicitors due in March until the start of the next financial year in April.
Chancery Lane said the LSC had said this was due to the ‘cash position’ in which it found itself due to obligations demanded of it by the Ministry of Justice.
The Law Society has written to the main clearing banks alerting them to the problems that legal aid firms may face as a result of this. It will also be writing to the MoJ to request that the payments are made on time.
Law Society director of policy Mark Stobbs said: ‘This appears to be a breach of the Prompt Payment Code – to which the MoJ is a signatory.
‘The Society does not see any good reason why the profession should bear the burden of the LSC’s poor financial management. It is bad enough that firms are not entitled to be paid for the work they do until a case has concluded, often months or even years later.
‘To delay payments even further after that, for work that firms have done and are entitled to be paid for, solely for reasons of government cashflow, is at odds with a purported government policy of supporting small businesses and is completely unacceptable,’ he said.
Stobbs added: ‘It is not acceptable for government bodies to treat its suppliers in this arbitrary way and with less than a month's notice. I very much hope that the MoJ will agree and be able to insist that the LSC returns to the payment schedule that it had promised and should honour.’
An LSC spokesman said: ‘The LSC commits to paying bills within 30 days of an assessment being completed and in fact pays the majority of bills well within this period.’
Moreover, he said the LSC started weekly payment runs in January 2009 in recognition of the tough economic climate firms are facing.
He said: ‘Delays will only affect some bills and all such bills will be paid in full in the first week of April.’
He added: ‘If this short delay is likely to create serious financial problems for a firm, we urge them to get in touch with their normal contact at the LSC at the earliest opportunity.’
An MoJ spokeswoman said: ‘This is an operational matter for the LSC.’
Comments
Hmmmmm
CB, maybe you are right, but for this solicitor the claims do refer to real clients. I also have real rent, electricity, rates, practising certificate, insurance, wages etc to pay for work already long since completed. So they should pay up instead of acting like a banana republic.
Aux Armes Citoyen
The usual mild mannered approach from one of the most prominent criminal defence solicitors. Measured and reassuring. I am sure this has nothing to do with checking bona fides of clients and everything to do with LSC fury with the MoJ. Just imagine if the Police Federation, for example, were told that Police Officers were to be paid ten days late. The Home Secretary would be lucky to survive the uproar.We are weak and using polite middle class tactics only makes us seem weaker in the eyes of this yobbish government. Aux Armes Citoyen. It is the only language that they understand.
@Andrew Keogh If you take a
@Andrew Keogh
If you take a look at the big picture, the day of reckoning seems to be at everybodies door, it started with the weakest, now no person, organisation or authority is escaping
Weakest
We are without a doubt currently the weakest. This is because of a policy of grotesque appeasement followed by the Law Society between 2000 and 2006
Double standards
I cannot help but observe that neither the Law Society nor any of the big firms have signed up for the PPC which is now indignantly being cast up to the LSC. In fact, the PPC web site does not even include the category for legal firms, such is the paucity of commitment. Do as you would be done by?
A Soft Touch
What on earth has this got to do with the issue in hand. Please clarify. Our problems are not because we failed to sign up to yet another consultancy but because we are seen as a soft touch. Such a soft touch that we can be made to wait for money. This is unprecedented in modern Britain and is an absolute indictment of then entire leadership of the criminal defence solicitor sector.