New guideline hourly rates for civil costs may be published by Christmas, the chairman of the committee charged with recommending the rates announced last week.

In a rare public address, Professor Stephen Nickell admitted that producing the rates has not been an easy process, with the Law Society and Association of British Insurers ‘pretty much diametrically opposed’.

He joked to the Motor Accident Solicitors Society (MASS) annual conference in London that ‘experience as a boxing referee might have been more helpful’ than his background as a leading economist.

When appointed last year, Nickell expressed hope that the rates would be settled by early 2008. But he said that the process turned out to be more complex than expected. The committee has had to investigate the role of referral fees, claims-management companies and access to justice as well as solicitors’ charges.

‘I am hoping we will arrive at a conclusion by Christmas,’ he said.

Nickell also revealed that a representative of MASS will be invited onto the committee when it comes to determine the fixed recoverable costs that will be applied to the new streamlined process for road traffic accident claims worth less than £10,000 where liability is admitted. The decision follows a sustained campaign by MASS.

Former MASS chairwoman Janet Tilley, managing partner of Colemans-CTTS in Kingston upon Thames, will be the co-opted member. She is currently involved with the Ministry of Justice’s stakeholder group, which is debating how the new process should work.

Tilley told the conference that the aim is to have the process agreed by Christmas to come into force in October 2009. However, there are ‘polarised views’ – insurers argue that RTA cases ‘are run by kids with headsets’, while claimant solicitors insist that only specialists, and not GPs, can provide medical reports, and that they should not have to make the first settlement offer.