I would like to reassure Lorna O'Reilly that there is no agenda within the Legal Services Commission (LSC) to move the delivery of social welfare law (SWL) legal services away from private practice (see [2007] Gazette, 10 May, 13).


In the Community Legal Service strategy, Making Legal Rights A Reality, we outlined our proposals for the procurement of integrated SWL services. At the moment, the LSC has almost 1,000 contracts, delivering mainly one or two categories of SWL. To ensure that clients get better access to legal aid and receive the full range of services that they require, we are aiming to have a smaller number of contracts that deliver the full range of categories (that is, community care, debt, employment, housing and welfare benefits).



Contracts will be large enough to require supervisors in each category; support for trainees; and a variety of client-focused outreach or other services as part of mainstream delivery. We believe that these contracts will be attractive to a range of providers, not least because the price will be set through best-value tendering.



The 'within 20% of fixed-fee' key performance indicator referred to by Ms O'Reilly is designed to achieve a balance between the need to ensure that providers do not turn away complex cases in a fixed-fee environment, and the desire to allow them to retain the benefits of genuine efficiency savings that do not impact on client care.



Carolyn Regan, chief executive, Legal Services Commission, London