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Congratulations Mr Gove. The department is sorely in need of your common sense.
I'm a work-a-day employed duty solicitor in central London, in my mid 50s. I'm paid 64% of what I was paid in 2003, I attend court with 1 case instead of the 3-4 I had in 2001. Back then I used sophisticated case management software whereas for the last several years it's been paper, handwriting and clerks.

Clearly there is a serious problem with legally aided criminal defence. Economies of scale and tech adoption have gone backwards for 15 years.
Unlike other specialist solicitor accreditations which require 3 years full time experience as a solicitor in the single practice area, criminal defence Duty Solicitor accreditation can be achieved with 1 or 2 months experience.
A place on the Duty Rota brings in new cases. This has encouraged firms to speed the newly qualified to take on the duty solicitor role they lack the experience to do, and the emergence of 4,000-5,000 ghost duty solicitors (barristers, the retired, those who have left the profession, those in other practice areas), who take the accreditation and then sell their Duty Rota Slots for £1,200 pm, no work required. £50-60 million pa is being drained from criminal defence practice.
Merely requiring 3 years full time criminal defence solicitor experience over the last 6 years for a place on the Duty Rota would resolve these core issues. Economies of scale would be achieved by experienced solicitors attending court with 4 cases instead of inexperienced solicitors attending with 1, by the use of software as a service case management to raise busy duty solicitor productivity.
The SRA store the relevant data as part of our yearly practice certificate renewal. Hence it would be a cost free to implement. So why wasn't it done in 2010 and why isn't it being done for the August to January rotas.

If I thought the 2 tier contract plan would achieve economies of scale I'd support it. But what will happen is profits via gaming compliance and Duty firms being reduced to representing only rapists and child sex abusers. How is the MoJ going to deal with the police being obligated to provide suspects with a list to pick a non-duty solicitor. More re-structuring, more cost. It's never ending. "Less work more cost" is pretty much the impact of MoJ policy in criminal defence legal aid for the last 20 years.