I am on my first full office day in quite some time consequently there is quite a backlog of correspondence. It contains quite an interesting mix too:

A notification of a Liaison visit which looks much more like a control audit.

A successful Internal Review result (If you are going to do one talk to us).

More top 10% Club members.

A perverse Cost Committee result

and a bounced cheque

I also spotted an interesting article on page 6 of Focus on CDS 18 concerning prior authorities.

Busy Monday ahead.

Been away all week, and in hotels with no easy internet access (I must get the laptop set up to do this, currently don't understand "wireless LAN" etc. myself) hence lack of activity here.

Training engagements took me to Southampton and Cardiff and it was London yesterday for a CRB/CAC hearing regarding extrapolation and general findings.

There are no startling things to report just pretty much the usual frustrations about the constant pressure on legal aid practitioners. It strikes me how easily this could be characterised as merely whinging however the ubiquitous nature of peoples concerns persuades me otherwise. Having covered most of the country now its hard not to ignore the unanimity of providers concerns.

Normal service should be resumed next week including, hopefully, a result on yesterdays hearing.

Northallerton is a fine Yorkshire market town. It has one of these, one of these and one of these.

We have long established links with the town and know a little about this part of the County. I had intended to post a longer piece on this history following comments made by a delegate at the Leeds seminar this week. Instead I thought I would simply demonstrate what the franchising and contracting has achieved in safeguarding access to justice. (Search for Northallerton with a radius of 5 miles).

The LSC proposes a serious course of action against a firm, serious enough to jeopardise it's ability to continue to deliver it's contract. The firm, not surprisingly, objects. That objection is sustained by someone else at the commission. Leaving aside the time, expense and anxiety involved in all of this what about simple common sense. Couldn't someone have asked "someone else", a colleague in the same organisation, if this was a sensible course of action in the first place?

Meanwhile despite now knowing the views of "someone else" they intend to continue progressing the same course of action with another firm in a parallel situation.

Perhaps it me that's mad!

I've had two conversations over the last week with solicitors leaving the profession, primarily out of frustration with what being a legal aid practitioner now entails. One is off to the bar the other to some other undisclosed project. The latter thanked me after yesterdays course as he felt it had "vindicated his decision". I know I often joke about the attractiveness of plumbing and chip shops as a viable economic alternative to publicly funded law but this is slightly unnerving.

Immediately below we asked about sample representativeness in PACE only CCAs. We now have an answer.

There is no sampling tool and our understanding is that the first two 1C claims from each months CDS 6 returns will be selected. There will, therefore, be no statistical guarantee of representativeness. The up side of this? The firm who put the question for us have been told that there is consequently no possibility that a General Finding will be made as a result of such an audit.

We have spoken to the first "top 10%" club member to receive a request for 20 files for a PACE only CCA. My first thought remains, on what basis are these selected and how does this guarantee a representative sample?

Perhaps we should ask.

Plans for Civil Tailored Fixed Fees have been announced. At the same time the new legal aid minister has indicated that an "auction" of criminal contracts will take place in London in April 2006. (See Law Society Gazette 13th October - the story is not on their website at time of writing).

Meanwhile the Carter review rumbles on in the background. What it will make of what the Gazette editorial refers to as "pre-emptive strikes" remains to be seen.

This is an issue we have discussed before. It now looks about to kick off. Did the CPS bottle it or refuse to cross a picket line?

Via: Liz Isaacs

Update

The new legal aid minister thinks Barristers are "irresponsible".

Lightning has struck twice. To be clear this is another "refusal of 100% enhancement" decision immediately overturned, without a word spoken in anger, at a CC. This time there was only one wasted journey (our cleint), but nonetheless, for him, this represents an afternoon lost to fee earning whilst regaining costs he was clearly entitled too all along.

I wonder if someone directed - "allow no uplifts and leave it to Costs Committees to decide" and LSC caseworkers are just following orders?. I think we should be told.

Who was it suggested the introduction of some cost (or other more draconian) risk for the LSC to stop this nonsense? Oh it was me.

A very talkative North East audience for the first date of the tour. Unusually everyone was quite open about current difficulties with the LSC especially regarding the "top 10%" club. If today's crowd were in any way representative it is significantly more than the top 10% who are facing an inquisition regarding PACE costs. The recurrent themes of this are also coalescing; attendance which should be properly recorded as waiting, travel, and a mixture of both when undertaken by agents, are top of the list of LSC concern.

We are also encountering a growing number of firms facing early peer review and everyone reports a harsher regime on CDS7 assessment, especially when enhancement is being sought.

None of this is much of a surprise I suppose but its nice to confirm one is not completely out of touch, when as desk bound as I have been recently.

The general mood seems resigned but resilient.

Will report on the rest of the UK over the next fortnight.

The Autumn training tour begins today on home turf in Gateshead, we get move further afield in the next two weeks.

I'm covering the current regulatory framework, especially the auditing and assessment techniques in operation. Rodney Warren is dealing with the grander political stage. Will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Places are still available.

Two good CCA results in this week

The first returned an 11% Cat 2 from an original CAT 3, rated at over 80%. Arguments about general findings and extrapolation will now follow. One hopes that, at the very least, simple embarrassment at having got this assessment so wildly wrong might persuade them against this course of action. (The firm have of course been working this entire year with the threat of a 6 figure recoupment hanging over their heads).

In the second we successfully reopened a case previously determined upon by CC with regard to the CLR merits grant. We won both in specific and general. The former saw the CC agree with us that the substantive merits decision had properly been made. In any event however they confirmed our general view that the LSC cannot second guess merits decisions. This raises the prospect that there are firms out there who have suffered cash extrapolation on the basis of the LSC wrongly applying their own devolved powers guidance in CCAs. We would be very keen to discuss this with anyone in this situation.

I rarely discuss my work with friends. It is hard enough to give a basic explanation of being "a specialist consultant who works entirely with the publicly funded branch of the legal profession, assisting them to deal with the increasingly difficult regulatory framework". It's harder still to discuss what you've just been doing (see yesterdays post for example) if it first involves an introduction to bill preparation, cost drafting and taxation before getting to the point. It is also frankly, quite dull to the layman (though why they think I should be interested in the goings on at Hartlepool College of FE is also quite beyond me).

Despite this I found myself discussing the Barristers strike with two teachers and a GP last night. They were incredulous at the rates of pay on offer believing the widely held myths about fat cat lawyers. Having all of us suffered some domestic emergency recently, plumbing, cars, blocked drains etc. they were astounded that the basic preparation rates on Criminal and Civil contract work are around or less than 50 quid an hour. That is, less than can be charged by a recently qualified student with a vocational qualification in one of the trades.

In case you are wondering we have decided to establish a Miners strike style support committee for the Bar. We anticipate regular and successful street bucket collections but are struggling for an equivalent "Coal not Dole" slogan. "Brief not Grief" is our best stab at it so far.

Preparing my first ever Crown Court appeal to a Costs Judge today (and not even on one of our bills). Very different discipline to LSC cost appeals though no less cash at stake. Given the time its taken I sincerely hope it is the last I have to do.

Any helpful hints will be gratefully received.

As will be obvious from the posts below I have spent a great deal of time talking with "high cost" PACE firms recently. I actually went to see a firm in this position on Friday. The high cost element is travel. On just a casual glance at PS identification codes it is clear that they travel to at least one local "advice desert" on a fairly regular basis.

Rather than the threat of sanctions surely the LSC should be coming out and thanking the firm for helping them meet their statutory obligations.