Unofficial strikes by criminal barristers look set to continue as talks stalled last week between the Bar Council and the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) over barristers' pay for very high-cost criminal cases.


Bar Council chairman Stephen Irwin wrote to heads of chambers stating that any resolution does not look likely until mid-June at the earliest.



A government-commissioned review of the scheme - with input from the DCA, the Legal Services Commission (LSC), the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Treasury - which reported last week failed to resolve the issue of remuneration.



The ongoing dispute means that four very high-cost cases currently scheduled to be heard in June do not have defence counsel. Mr Irwin said in his letter that the government had refused his request to pay counsel retrospectively in these cases.



The Bar Council and the DCA are at loggerheads over rates of pay for barristers, who claim they will earn less than £20 per hour for some cases under the new scheme, which was introduced in April. Many barristers have refused to sign contracts for criminal legal aid until the issue of pay is resolved. Last month, Mr Irwin urged barristers to act without payment to allow cases to continue.



A DCA spokeswoman said: 'We are anxious to secure the smooth running of cases [to be heard in June]and the court system. However, there is a fixed budget for legal aid and we have to keep within it.' She added: 'Very high-cost cases make up only 1% of criminal cases, but take nearly half of the criminal legal aid budget.'



Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva said: 'The Law Society entirely supports the government's objective of curbing the cost of very high-cost criminal cases... Failure to control costs of these cases leads to cuts in the availability of civil legal aid to the public. The key problem with high-cost criminal cases is the failure to control fees paid to QCs.'



Andrew Hall, chairman of the Bar Council's remuneration committee, said: 'The LSC has provided additional data which both sides need to look at to work out the likely cost of proposals. In the meantime, the bar is working with the commission on problem cases where people have not been represented.'