Fury at telephone pay plan

LEGAL AID: payment rule change means solicitors 'will end up working for nothing'

Criminal law specialist solicitors are reeling over a decision by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to change the way they are paid for telephone work, branding it one of the worst setbacks since last year's furore over criminal contracting.

The warning came after the LSC ditched controversial plans to combine rates for out-of-hours and own solicitor work after consultation on police station payment, but went ahead with a single structure for telephone calls.

The new scheme will set a fixed rate based on the calculations that on average 1.1 advice and assistance calls and 1.84 routine calls are made per case.

Around a third of firms are already paid according to this scheme, and the change will bring the rest into the fold.

Rodney Warren, chairman of the Law Society's access to justice committee, who has taken on the new role of director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said: 'We have gone back to square one.

This is the same scheme that was so unpopular when criminal contracting started in April 2001, and proved to be the biggest stumbling block at the time.'

Mr Warren also suggested that basing the new system on national averages ignored reality: 'For example, if someone is accused of murder, you can end up making lots of phone calls, and now we will end up doing it for nothing.'

Richard Miller, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, said he was glad the LSC had reconsidered the 'problematic aspects' of the original proposals, adding that the success of the telephone changes depended on the actual level of payment.

'If the fixed payment to replace payments for telephone calls is set at a reasonable level, this change may be acceptable, although we remain concerned that in serious cases where a lot of telephone contact is justified, this could act as a disincentive to provide the best service,' he explained.

An LSC spokeswoman said it had abandoned more 'radical' changes to the payment system as a result of responses to the consultation, adding that there was no evidence to support the claim that its figures were not up to scratch.

'We have delayed implementation of changes to the payment structure for telephone calls several times,' she said.

'Despite lengthy consultation nobody has offered a more viable option to the one we proposed some 14 months ago, which the Law Society and representative groups agreed in March 2001.'

Paula Rohan