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Duty Solicitors. However strong our conviction, the relative salary and stress, the lack of a career path, is difficult to justify to the spouse and children.

We have only 2000 to 2500 full time duty solicitors. David Cameron reported that 1000 new jobs are created every day.

The MoJ need to grasp that tech is a 2 edged sword. The use of algorithms doesn't stop at targeted marketing of goods and services. Identification of potential staff is next. Finding the brightest 1 or 2% in the workforce who have the transferable skills duty solicitors take for granted, is a lottery for businesses.

A single employment agency putting the duty solicitor job through an algorithm which considers transferable skills and current salaries, would see all of us getting job offers we can't refuse. Whether that algorithm is being run today or we have to wait a year, it will happen, sooner rather than later. Once it starts, it will be quick, perhaps as soon as a couple of months for the MoJ to lose all of us.

Hence action is needed before it starts to raise salary levels and career prospects. Efficiency and an open market are key. Instead of 2 tier the MoJ should try what follows.
1/ Replace contracting with minimum requirements on criminal defence case management software to ensure compliance.
2/ Limit rota slots to the local court and it's police stations so that firms are representing 2-4 clients' per day in their local court rather than 1.
3/ Require duty solicitors on the rota to do a minimum number of PACE interviews and magistrates court hearings per month equal to 2 days of attendances pw, to end the scandal of every full-time duty solicitor losing £1000-£1500 pm in wages so their firms can pay a retainer for the duty slots of ghost duty solicitors.
4/ Keep criminal defence open to new firms entering the market to encourage existing firms to offer equity partnership or risk losing their talent.
5/ Criminal defence is one part of the justice process. Efficiency needs to cover the whole, the courts, the CPS, the probation and prison services. Probation sentencing reports should be done on the day of plea not for a later hearing date. Courts should schedule hearings as if they are appointments. Police officers waste 2-3 hours per matter writing out lengthy case and interview summaries yet the evidence they are based on is already completed and uploaded before the first hearing. We have cjsm email. It would be easier and cheaper to disclose it all at the first hearing.

I'm a voice in the wind. But I suggest you all look to your email because recruiters are getting desperate for talent and we are very easy pickings.