With a sinking heart I have to report two more depressing calls in the last few hours.

The first is from a further firm caught in the "reduce PACE costs" corporate target - an examination of all recent investigation claims is to follow. He was particularly miffed having given up 2 days of the weekend to Duty Solicitor commitments. "It’s no fun this" - perhaps being the understatement of the season.

Next up a recent CCA appeal success, previous blogged about here, are told that they are shortly to face a control audit. Purely coincidental of course.

Anyone got any good news?

"This might sound tough, but it’s simply about applying the quality standards that are already in place. Achieving this target is clearly vital if we are to ensure the quality of the services clients receive and make best use of limited resources to fund as many acts as assistance as possible”.(Sic)

Thus the LSC explain their intention to target the use of Peer Review so as to "remove all contracts with ineffective suppliers".This said without a hint of irony. So much so that one might easily forget that those self same "ineffective suppliers" got these contracts, and were therefore judged "effective", by err… the LSC.

A short, slightly flippant post for a Friday inspired by Michael Buerk's courting of controversy earlier in the week.

With his views in the ether I had a look at the LSC corporate plan this week. It is available on their website (which at time of writing is unavailable so sorry for the lack of a link) in full Technicolor. Have a flip through and what do you think the balance of male to female images is? A rough calculation can be found be clinking on the "continue to read" line below.

It would seem that regarding LSC corporate strategies if nothing else Mr Buerk is correct, the ratio of female to male images is roughly 2:1.

Male only firms - you have been warned - get recruiting.

Unsurprisingly Immigration suppliers also face new and demanding statistical hurdles under LSC Corporate Targets which can be read in summary in Focus 48.

A target of a 40% "success" rate in asylum cases, by April 2006, is to be "explored in discussion" with underachieving firms with the aim of agreeing an "action plan which will lead to improvement". The worst sanction identified is calling in the Peer Reviewers.

The first practical translation of this is a unilateral decision by the LSC to withdraw, in two weeks time, essential devolved powers. The only “exploration on offer is a discuss the validity of the “success” rate the devolved powers are going it seems.

We are of course keen to hear any similar interpretations of these new targets - the comments boxes can be used anonymously to protect the innocent.

Focus 48 arrived last week and can also be found here. Much of interest especially on Preferred Suppliers.

This week however we are interesting in translating the LSC’s “Corporate Targets” as discussed at page four of this issue.

This post involves the intention to reduce Police Station costs by 5% by "focussing on solicitors offices where costs are particularly high". This relates to the article “Not so SOOPER” in the archive here.

So what does this focus involve once you have been identified as "particularly high costs"?

It begins with a “chat” with your Account Manager. Oh and s/he will also bring along a senior caseworker to simultaneously audit 20 PACE claims. This chat involves having a series of predetermined questions put to you. This can take some time and focuses on what they believe to be areas of potential “over-claiming”.

Many of the answers sought might be easily answerable had they been supplied in advance however testing the immediacy of your claims knowledge seems to form an important part of the assessment.

The issues under scrutiny are the same Contract Compliance chestnuts, attendance v waiting time, bail back attendance, travel, SBT etc.

The outcome in this instance was an indication that the meeting and mini audit had not assuaged the LSC’s fears and that a full CCA audit of PACE claims will be scheduled later in the year (when file sampling software had been “tweaked”). And all this despite the fact that the firm has a demonstrable declining average cost per case and is Category 1!!

This is another entirely new audit approach - we have been warned.

Just back from holiday with an exciting tale to tell regarding an airline company for those interested.

The first day in-tray is pretty much as one would expect, not least with regard to ongoing CCA appeals. Most interestingly there is to be a Cost Appeal Committee or a Contract Review Body meeting concerning "general findings" tomorrow. The seeming merger of these bodies is interesting in and of itself however the importance of substantive issue will be obvious to most practitioners.

We also have had a very positive result in this regard from a recent CC hearing. The committee simply determined, without any of the jurisdictional issues to be considered tomorrow, that the findings were genuine mistakes and that this should not therefore be extrapolated offer a 12-month period. Unsurprisingly the Regional Director has self-certified a PoP to challenge this.

We will keep you up to date - if you have outstanding extrapolation issues please get in touch.

UPDATE

Tomorrows hearing of the CAC/CRB has been adjourned this gives firm's a bit more time to get in touch if they have similar concerns.

Simon is on holiday so apologies for the lack of entries.

LSC issues are like buses, nothing for ages then two come at once. In a period of just two days JRS have come across two unprecedented issues (unless of course you know different).

The first related to a Category 1 firm in Lancaster. The firm received a phone call from the Newcastle Regional office requesting that the firm send to them a certain high cost police station claim which dated back to 2003.

They stated that the purpose for this was so they (the LSC) could get a better understanding of what the issues were behind such high cost police claims, and see if such claims could be avoided and that this was part of an ongoing project. It was clearly stated that this was not a Contract Compliance Audit, but purely for the reasons above. The firm were more than happy to assist and despatched the file to Newcastle.

Soon after, the firm received a letter and a Contract Compliance Summary Report requesting a sum of money which had been assessed off the claim as the reduction represented 5% of the original claim. The firm immediately contacted the Newcastle office and objected strongly as to the way this had been conducted. They were informed that the reasons originally given for the file/claim were genuine but London had directed them otherwise. The indication was that other firms had also had the request and that more than one claim had been received from these firms and the recoupment was substantial.

The second issue relates to a North East Immigration firm. When the contract was amended all Immigration firms lost their Devolved Powers and needed to apply to the LSC to have them reinstated. This firm did this successfully.

At the beginning of the year discussions with suppliers within the area and the LSC began with regard to performance. It was agreed that the process was unfair as the majority of cases that the solicitors were dealing with were dispersed cases. Further discussions were to take place but after a chance phone call with the firm’s Account Manager, they were informed that London had decided to remove the Devolved Powers of firms in the area dealing in Immigration as of the 1st September. The firm was informed that a letter would be sent out. This would only give firms less than two weeks to appeal this decision.

Both the above examples do give rise to the question of “Partnership” as advocated by the LSC.

Just spent a happy couple of hours demonstrating that one of the "out of profile" firms referred to in the "SOOPER" threads below is not so. Rather than having escalating average Police Station claims the undeniable trend is downwards.

This was only possible after they had input over 3000 claims into our CDS 6 Wizard. We strongly urge you to start using it now. Get your copy for free from the Middlesbrough office.

The silence is further shattered by a number of panic calls from the more senior end of the Criminal Defence fraternity.

They all ask:

"Will I have to do the Duty Solicitor accreditation? It will be like retaking my driving test and I could well fail!"

This stampede seems to have been sparked by a recent leaflet from the Law Society.

The answer can be found in Focus on CDS 17 page 3 which you can download here.

“These requirements do not apply to current Duty Solicitors”

Minutes after posting the entry below lo and behold the phone goes. It’s a client with a Peer Review request. Not the full scheme but part of the “research project”.

This involves a sample of private law children act matters only, and not a stratified sample. Disturbingly there are a high (and disproportionate) number of "client fails to provide further instructions" endings.

On the plus side the outcome will not affect contract or SQM status. A "below competent" outcome will however trigger Peer Review proper - within the next 6 months.

Fingers crossed for a better result than that.

Holiday time seems to be here (mine starts on Friday). Its eerily quiet, I haven't had a taxing phone query all week. Likewise there is no pressing news to post here.

If anything interesting is happening in your part of the world let us know.

The argument about Crown Court files and franchising is as old as the scheme. The different taxation and payment structure lead a number of practitioners to spread the rumour that they fell outside the scope of the franchise audit. Not so, never so.

Over the years this has manifested itself in examples such as failure to include Crown files in file review and their fee earners in supervisory activities. That aside its fair to say that Crown files have largely slipped under the audit radar. Why so? There encompass fewer SQM requirements and being larger tend to frighten off the time conscious assessor.

Under current proposals they can now constitute 25% of a peer review sample. Time to have a review of file management practice we think.