PUBLIC MONEY: Kingsmill suggests levying high-earning City solicitors to support funding

New contract arrangements for doctors offer a potential alternative to the current legal aid pay system, President Peter Williamson said last week in his address to the Law Society Annual Conference in London.

Mr Williamson told around 650 delegates that the new general medical services contracts, scheduled to be introduced for GPs in 2004, will provide funding for premises and quality assurance as well as for general services, including out-of-hours work.

A minimum practice income is guaranteed.

He said: 'The benefits are that GPs will know in advance the budget that will be allocated to them and they can plan with certainty.

There are incentives for GPs to operate efficiently and well.

There is much in this model that could work well for legal aid suppliers.'

Later, Lord Falconer, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, said that the GP model was one which his department would examine.

At the plenary session which followed Mr Williamson's speech, former City solicitor Denise Kingsmill, now deputy chairman of the Competition Commission, suggested that high-earning City solicitors should pay a levy which would contribute to the cost of legal aid.

'The average earnings of these lawyers are well in excess of 200,000 a year,' she said.

'Surely the profession can find some other way of financing [legal aid services] alongside other provision.'

Saying pro bono work should be compulsory for young solicitors, she told delegates that they 'should contemplate more radical ideas rather than whinge about the failings of the government'.

Legal Services Commission chairman Phillip Ely also called on solicitors to exhibit 'less whingeing and more engagement'.

However, he praised the work of most legal aid solicitors.

'We say far too little about the high quality we receive,' he said.

Ms Kingsmill also said the ban on solicitor-advocates in criminal cases wearing wigs 'is probably something we would say is a restrictive practice', if it led to the perception that one advocate is better than another.

Neil Rose