By Catherine Baksi


Solicitors this week warned of the 'madness' of introducing all proposed criminal legal aid reforms at once and called on the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to reconsider its timetable after it announced its intention to terminate the current criminal contracts.



The LSC had planned to amend the existing criminal contract in October so as to introduce police station fixed fees and the very high-cost case contracting panel, and expand the defence solicitor call centre and CDS Direct.



However, in light of the ruling in the Law Society's judicial review of the contract amendment clause in the general civil contract (see [2007] Gazette, 2 August, 1), which the LSC has announced it will appeal, the LSC has been forced to scrap this plan, as the contracts were entered into before the reforms were announced and providers would have been unaware of them at the time they signed.



Instead, the LSC will terminate all contracts from 13 January 2008 and run a new tendering process for contracts incorporating the reforms, which will operate from 14 January for six months.



The LSC then intends to introduce the unified contract for criminal work until it is replaced by contracts awarded through best value tendering. It also plans to introduce the litigator graduated fee scheme in January 2008.



Ian Kelcey, chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said the move would create immense uncertainty and was potentially damaging. 'We have always warned about the risk of proceeding with these changes without understanding the consequences. To do it in one big bang is madness,' he said.



More positively, Richard Miller, the Law Society's head of legal aid, said the move delayed the planned fee cuts for three months, gave practitioners more time to negotiate with the government on a better way forward and, importantly, demonstrated the limits to the LSC's ability to amend contracts.



Law Society President Andrew Holroyd said: 'We call on the government to delay all the current changes, and to sit down with us to discuss whether there is a better way forward. It is not too late to sort this out to create a sustainable future for legal aid.'



Carolyn Regan, LSC chief executive, said the judicial review ruling could result in the need for much shorter contracts to ensure the LSC could amend the technical specifications at regular intervals to reflect changes in circumstances or policy, which would not be in the interests of providers or clients.



The LSC is still planning to implement the new fee schemes in civil work in October. Mr Holroyd has written to legal aid minister Lord Hunt, calling on him to delay this too.



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