John Whiting suggests that the summary assessment of the claimant's costs following a fast-track trial is inappropriate (see [2005] Gazette, 12 May, 16).

I disagree. One of the fundamental changes brought about by the introduction of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) was the ability of a court summarily to assess costs at a conclusion of a fast-track trial.


The system of assessing costs has now been in force in excess of six years and, for my part, it has been one of the major successes of the CPR.


A solicitor would usually receive a full and complete file of papers from his insurer clients. If he did he would have seen the amount of correspondence between his insurer clients and the claimant's solicitors prior to the commencement of proceedings, and assuming that he acted for the defendants immediately following receipt of the claim form, he would have received a copy of the claimant's allocation questionnaire, which would have provided an estimate of the claimant's costs up to the filing of the allocation questionnaire together with an estimate of costs up to trial.


If Mr Whiting had his way all matters would be referred to a detailed assessment and in this instance listed for a day where the costs involved for both parties could well exceed £5,000. This is clearly disproportionate.


One further advantage of the summary assessment procedure is that the claimant's solicitors do not have to deal with cost negotiators.


Christopher Taylor, Kippax Beaumont Lewis, Bolton