LCD 'to set' crime targets

REMUNERATION: regime will kick in next year while 'significant changes' commence in 2005

Criminal law practitioners were thrown into further turmoil last week when the Lord Chancellor's Department (LCD) revealed that from next year it will begin implementing a regime under which they will only be paid for achieving certain results.

Speaking at the Criminal Law Solicitors Association (CLSA) rally in Birmingham, LCD criminal defence head Sean Langley said one of the reasons firms had been served with a mass 12-month notice of termination of the current contract was to enable pay to reflect changes in the criminal justice system.

'Being paid for what you have done will not be good enough in the future - you will be paid for achieving something,' he told delegates.

He added: 'Payment for work going on is no longer flavour of the month at the Treasury - there have to be outputs.'

One of the strands of the government's case preparation and progression project will be to link remuneration to work such as being ready for a hearing or achieving disclosure when required to.

Roll-out after pilots is expected in April 2005.

Keynote speaker Steve Orchard, chief executive of the Legal Services Commission (LSC), admitted that the LSC, LCD and Treasury had fallen out over the legal aid budget and that he found the situation 'depressing'.

He said: 'I wish I could tell you there had been a meeting of minds - but unfortunately not.'

Mr Orchard said current anti-lawyer views meant politicians felt justified in refusing to invest in legal aid, and told delegates 'not to hold their breath' for a pay rise.

But he warned that the government was 'naive' in sacrificing the long-term future of both criminal and civil legal aid.

'The government will find itself in the same position as with the National Health Service, where it will have to throw buckets of money at it because of years and years of neglect,' he predicted.

However, LSC Criminal Defence Service head Richard Collins insisted he was happy with the current supplier base and pleaded with firms to stick with it.

'I do not want you pulling out and going off and doing other things,' he said.

But speaking after the rally, CLSA director Rodney Warren said the government had only created more uncertainty and given out the clear message that the future was bleak.

'I wonder what right the government thinks it has to set new levels of expectation when it has let the profession down persistently, year after year,' he said.

Paula Rohan