The government is apparently intent on implementing a new fixed-fee regime on a wide range of personal injury cases, pre- and post-issue, up to £25,000. It echoes the fiasco over home information packs (HIPs). Consider this:
l The existing regime serves the consumer well. A consumer can readily find a solicitor able to undertake his claim and usually at no cost to him. That is surely the main purpose of the compensation system - to assist the injured party so far as possible to be placed in the position he would have been in but for the wrongful act of the defendant. If the system is restructured, HIPs-style, to suit certain perceived political objectives (largely fostered by insurer interests), we are in grave danger of ending up, once again, with the tail wagging the dog - and the dog giving up.

l Defendants already have efficient means of controlling costs: comply with the protocol, deal with liability promptly and make sensible offers. That was the purpose of the protocol introduced, non-politically but with appropriate legal knowledge, by Lord Woolf (and studiously ignored by defendant insurers in most cases).

l Equally, there is already a good system for controlling excessive costs: assessment. A district judge is in the best position to assess whether a claim for costs is reasonable, based on experience and full knowledge of the facts.

l If, at the lower end, costs seem disproportionate to the damages, it is because (a) damages themselves are too low (no one in their right mind would trade a year of whiplash pain for a paltry £2,000 or so) and (b) the effect of the Court of Appeal decisions in Hollins, Myatt and Garrett et al has been to increase hugely the amount of work necessary before an effective conditional fee agreement retainer can be put in place. If, as a result, costs are high, the defendant industry only has itself to blame.



The Ministry of Justice is undertaking a consultation process, but the message is apparently clear. Maintaining an existing system and improving upon it is not an option. There will be a significant extension of the fixed-fee regime. Why? Whose purpose is being truly served?



As with HIPs, fixed fees represent a superficially attractive regime which does not stand up to examination. In the words of George Bernard Shaw: 'For every complex problem, there is a simple solution... and it's wrong.'



Peter Jones, Smith Jones Solicitors, Kenilworth, Warwickshire