10m LSC overspend

The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has announced that the overspend on certificated civil legal aid work will hit 10 million this year.

However, it expects to be able to offset this against an underspend on legal help work.

An LSC spokeswoman told the Gazette: 'Overall, we expect the civil certificated spend for the year to be about 10 million net more than forecast, but this will be balanced by small underspends on legal help in both immigration and non immigration.'

The figure for civil legal aid - lower than expected by some observers - indicates that the lion's share of the total LSC overspend, more than 100 million, comes from crime.

Richard Miller, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, said the 10 million was a relative drop in the ocean compared to the overall problem the LSC is facing.

'This shows that the real problem is with crime,' he added.

'A figure of 10 million is not a significant overspend.'

The LSC has also revealed that it was forced to suspend the processing of firms' payments this month following a mysterious upsurge in the submission of bills and payments on accounts.

The spokeswoman said the first payment run for the month was in excess of 38 million.

'This was an unusually high figure,' she explained.

'A normal figure would be in the range of 17 million to 22 million.

At [chief executive] Steve Orchard's request, processing was suspended briefly while it was investigated.

Processing has recommenced and we will pay out well over 70 million gross, about 50 million-plus net'.

She added: 'We simply don't know why there was a big increase.

More work was submitted and as a result we processed more'.

Paula Rohan