By Catherine Baksi


Hundreds of criminal barristers have refused to sign a new contract for high-value legal aid work in a move that will put the very high-cost case (VHCC) regime in jeopardy.



The Legal Services Commission (LSC) has admitted that a 'substantial number of barristers' have refused to sign up to its new terms for VHCCs. It is understood that none of the leading barristers' sets had signed when the deadline expired on Monday.



The radical move would mean solicitors will be left with no counsel to instruct in some high-value criminal cases. The commission has refused to reveal how many of the 2,300 barristers who were offered panel places after the tendering process are boycotting the contract.



Tan Ikram, president of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, said: 'As solicitors, we have a duty to select appropriately skilled counsel for a particular case. If all counsel linked to a contract decided that they do not wish to do VHCC work, clients will suffer as there may not be sufficiently experienced advocates to do the work.'



Barristers are unhappy with the level of fees offered under the new contract as well as provisions allowing the LSC to monitor their diaries and provide guidance on what the contract means after it has been signed.



Sarah Clearly, regulatory partner at national firm Irwin Mitchell, said the LSC could be forced to go back to the drawing board after massive amounts of money, effort and resources have been expended.



The run-up to Monday's deadline saw some strongly worded exchanges between the bar and the LSC, with the LSC warning that a boycott of the contract could amount to a breach of competition law.



Sally O'Neill QC, chairwoman of the Criminal Bar Association, told the Gazette: 'I am confident that whatever decision was made by each member ofthe bar who was considering whether or not to sign the VHCC contract, would have been made independently and, I hope, on a fully informed basis.'



Meanwhile, the LSC has abandoned the new script introduced for custody officers in police stations last week, and apologised for the confusion caused.



Following expansion of the Defence Solicitor Call Centre (DSCC) on 14 January, all requests for publicly funded police station work, including own-client work, will be routed through the call centre.



This prompted the LSC and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) to agree a form of words to assist custody staff in dealing with the rights of detained persons while in custody.



In the days following the change, criminal solicitors reported that use of the new script was causing chaos and confusion in custody suites, with detainees going unrepresented or being denied their right to instruct their own solicitor.



Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association which pressed for the script to be scrapped, said: 'We were very concerned that the new script was too complicated and detainees would not understand their rights. We're very pleased that the LSC has responded so quickly.'



Solicitors have complained of very low call-out volumes since the DSCC was introduced, with DSCC staff holding inaccurate contact details for them. Mr Warren added: 'The overall problem is that the LSC brought in the expanded scheme too hurriedly. They should have piloted it first to make sure they'd got the correct infrastructure in place.'



The LSC said the incorrect details had been generated by a bug in its software.