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the purpose of a bill of costs in 99% of cases is where there is a between the parties bill of costs and the parties must either agree what is reasonable or a costs judge must assess what is reasonable.

The new bill of costs format is fairly impenetrable. It consists of 100+ codes in phases broadly in line with the those used in costs budgeting. It will be impossible for either party of the court to tell what is or is not reasonable. The system is adopted from a USA system because it works really well there in assessing between the parties costs.......... err ...hang on the system it's based on doesn't have between the parties costs orders - it's useful for solicitor own client billing not working out if costs are reasonable or not.

Costs are presently reduced by about 30% - 35% (an average of 1000s files in last 5 yrs in my firm) this will be difficult to achieve when if costs are reasonable or otherwise cannot be identified. The upshot will be unreasonable costs will be allowed between the parties. The exact opposite of the intended consequence.

Same unintended result with costs budgeting. Costs budget set on basis everything stays in issue to trial when only 3% of litigated cases reach trial. A few mins spent by a judge who considers costs in very broad terms largely based on proportionality top the damages claimed at that time (ie the maximum especially seeing you must now issue for that amount or abuse of process) as opposed to awarded. The case settles before the budgeted costs have been incurred and receiving party says pay because within budget you cannot deviate downwards. Or costs are clearly unreasonable but in budget and everything happened in line with assumptions so argument is unreasonable costs must be paid because in budget.

Next problem is costs budgeted costs split a bill into at least 20 or 30 parts (30 where pre and post budget and two proportionality tests x 10 phases) so 60 letters to a party becomes 30 lots of 1- 3 letters it is impossible to assess what is reasonable.

In summary in cases where there is a budget the bill of costs takes twice as long to draft, is 5 or 6 times as long, contains unreasonable costs that cannot be challenged because they are within an approved budget and costs that are unreasonable are so convoluted that it is impossible to tell what is or is not reasonable.