Realistic targets

The article 'Paying the Price' (see [2000] Gazette, 9 November, 30) raises serious and potentially damaging issues for the profession.

There are in my estimation 220 working days a year.

Some 2,000 chargeable hours a year equates to a consistent nine hours a day.

That must realistically equate to 12 working hours a day, every day.

Targets at this level can only lead to a temptation to over- record time spent on a matter.

At the very least, working such long hours must lead to a drop in efficiency.

This in turn means that even if the time is genuinely spent, more time than necessary is spent.

Either way the client has not got what he thinks he is paying for.

The client is paying too much.

That at least could be the perception created by prima facie excessive and unachievable targets.

Whatever the reality of time spent this can only have an adverse effect on the reputation and integrity of the profession.

Targets should be achievable and realistic if our clients are to believe in what we do.

Andrew Twineham, Jacksons, Middlesbrough