LEGAL AID: Legal Services Commission announces deadling for applying for contracts


Proposed reforms to criminal defence legal aid contracts risk 'pushing the defence service towards disaster' and should be resisted 'to the end', Roger Peach, the president of the Criminal Defence Solicitors' Union has warned.



Firms now have until 31 October to apply for a new six-month contract after the Legal Services Commission (LSC) decided this week to plough ahead with plans to scrap the existing contract, despite opposition from solicitors.



The temporary contracts - set to come into force on 14 January 2008 - will introduce some fixed fees, expand the use of a criminal defence call centre designed to replace certain services currently provided by duty solicitors, and create a contracting panel for very high-cost cases.



Other proposed reforms have been put on hold after a High Court ruling on a judicial review brought by the Law Society in relation to civil contracts. The LSC is appealing the decision but wants to implement the temporary contract as a short-term measure. Practitioners will have to re-apply for revised contracts in July next year.



Mr Peach said: 'The LSC has proved deaf to all attempts to provide an agreed outcome to their proposals, leaving us with no alternative but massive resistance... our clear duty is to resist to the end.'



Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association (CLSA), warned that firms should not sign up until they have more detail on what the new contracts entail and fully understand what they are committing to financially and professionally.



'I don't think anybody can make a sensible decision until they see the outcome of the LSC's own whole- system impact assessment,' he said.



Mr Warren said the LSC had failed to measure how the combination of various reforms would impact on the profession. He called for all criminal practitioners to attend regional meetings organised by the CLSA and others, ahead of a national meeting, arranged by the Law Society, at Methodist Hall, in Westminster, London, on 23 October.



The Law Society has asked for any reforms to be deferred pending the publication of and full consultation on the detail of proposed contracts.



President Andrew Holroyd said: 'We will be giving further advice to the profession [following consultations and the national meeting]... practitioners may feel it would be helpful to await that advice before making their decision.'

The LSC is set to publish the contract this week without showing a draft to the Society or other groups. A spokesman warned firms that their work would be reallocated if they did not register for the new contract in time. 'We are confident that the majority of firms will sign up,' he said.





Anita Rice