Supplementary written evidence from Association
of Lawyers for Children
Thank you for arranging time for the session
yesterday, which was very helpful, and we are extremely grateful
to you.
There are a couple of matters that we thought the
members of the Committee would find useful to know about, which
we did not have time to raise in the time available:-
As our session on 16 June was coming to
a close I was aware, from at least one of the members of the Committee,
that there was interest in knowing what the position of the Legal
Services Commission would be if there was a delay in the timetable.
1. At a Law Society meeting of civil practitioner
groups on the 20 May, (which comprises a broad range of civil
practitioners) there was "no head of steam" amongst
practitioners in general either to press for a new contract, or
to finalise new payment regime(s). The overwhelming desire was
to be clear that LSC have a plan B to keep things going past March
2010.
2. It has been recognised for some time
that the timetable was unrealistic and we have seen an exchange
of correspondence between the Law Society and the LSC dated the
29 May 2009 which confirms that contingency plans are
in place if the April 2010 deadlines are missed and that
there is insufficient time to complete a bid round exercise for
new contracts for April 2010. The contingency would be a delay
to the bid rounds and the rollover of existing contracts for a
period, which would depend upon the circumstances.
3. As the Committee knows, the ALC has put
forward an alternative advocacy scheme for care cases. It appears
at pages 35-38 of our main consultation response and is explained
at paras 109-138. The scheme distinguishes complexity in a straightforward
manner by listing and length of hearing and by tier of court,
and it covers advocacy and hearing preparation for solicitors
as well as barristers. The Committee may be interested to know
that the LSC has now modelled it and that at full stated value
it comes within their budget, with only a 10% adjustment in the
solicitor non-advocacy representation fee necessary to fund the
solicitor hearing preparation element. If, for whatever reason,
a revised, extended Family Graduated Fee Scheme is not viable,
we believe that the ALC scheme (designed for care cases but which
can easily be extended to other areas of family law) is the obvious
next best option. In the event of any delay in the implementation
of a unified advocacy scheme, the one change that should and can
easily be made now would be to make the 10% adjustment to the
solicitor non-advocacy representation fee that would fund solicitor-hearing
preparation. At a stroke, that would remove currently the biggest
inequity in payment, which, we are bound to say, is no fault of
the Bar but every fault of the LSC's chosen methodology in 2007.
4. I enclose a copy email (not printed)
from one of our members that clearly reflects Practioners views
on the Ernst & Young survey. I have his permission to forward
it to you.
Caroline Little
Co-Chair
17 June 2009
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