6. Memorandum from the Ministry of
Justice
Best Value Tendering
I am writing to let you know that the plans
to tender criminal legal aid work, that both Carolyn Regan and
I referred to in evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on
9 December 2009, have changed.
At the end of last year Ministers announced
that they had invited the Legal Services Commission not to proceed
with the Best Value Tendering pilots planned for Avon and Somerset
and Greater Manchester. The bidding processes had been due to
start early this month.
The reason for this change was that Ministers
were persuaded by the Law Society and a number of criminal legal
aid firms that the scheme proposed was unlikely to lead to the
efficient, re-structured legal services market envisaged by Lord
Carter in his 2006 Review of Legal Aid procurement.
Ministers remain fully committed to developing
tendering processes with a more ambitious scope which reduce the
overall costs for criminal legal aid and by increasing the opportunities
for innovation and efficiency enable suppliers to be profitable
and sustainable.
The consideration work already undertaken in
preparation for the pilots puts us in a strong position to develop
the new proposals. Ministers have therefore asked their officials
to work closely with the LSC, the Law Society and individual practitioners
to develop in outline improved proposals by the end of March 2010.
Peter Handcock
Director General
Access to Justice
25 January 2010
| 
