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If costs budgets are filed with the DQ they need amending before the first CMC to update the level of costs incurred and what issues remain in dispute. It is unclear how this extra work benefits the court. It serves only to increase costs which is the opposite of what budgeting is supposed to achieve.

"The committee also discussed precedent H, and whether ‘assumptions’ should be included in the short version of the form. It was agreed that these should be included ... However, the judge who approves the costs budget will not have to say what assumptions they accepted. ... it would ‘place an unduly heavy burden on the case management judge’."

Superb idea. Produce a budget where the costs judge at the end of the case does not know what was budgeted for. How does this work if a party applies to increase a budget by application or with 'good reason' on assessment?

The big problem with this is the argument "costs are in budget and therefore they should be paid regardless of whether they are reasonable or not as you cannot depart from the costs". Whilst this argument is not normally accepted, as departing from a budget means increasing a budget and not that "in budget" costs are not subject to assessment, where it is accepted it is very hard for paying parties to argue the budget should be lower because there was less evidence due to a narrowing of issues if the amount of evidence allowed in the budget in the first place is not known.

hat if costs claimed are on budget but should arguably be much less because less evidence and experts were required