Your article 'Blood on the walls over crime tendering' rather understated the Legal Aid Practitioners Group's opposition to this proposal (see [2005] Gazette, 3 February, 1).


Our initial response was that the bid round would be an expensive exercise that would result in the government paying more for a lower quality service. Having studied the detail, we think that the scheme is unworkable, rather than just undesirable.


Competitive tendering is a way of introducing a limited degree of competition where there would otherwise be none, such as for one-off capital projects, or for the provision of a monopoly service in a defined area, such as school dinners, rubbish collection or rail franchises. It has never been used in any field comparable to legal services.


The basis on which firms will be asked to bid and the means by which bids will be compared is not coherent. Quality controls are absent.


The Legal Services Commission (LSC) does not understand that firms need to know the length of contract they will be bidding for to calculate their bids - a pretty fundamental misapprehension.


The prospect of a new bidding round every year is a bureaucratic nightmare. We have no confidence, having read the consultation paper, that the LSC understands what it is doing, or why.