Another notification of a "below competent" Criminal Peer Review outcome to take the shine of what had been a good day so far. It is also, in my view, another perfectly competent practice with a great local reputation.

With this in mind three points

ONE

Preferred Supplier and Peer Review Training

LONDON - Tuesday 13th June
Mostyn Hotel, Marble Arch

TWO

If there is enough interest we will re run either course for those who missed it first time round. A no obligation statement of interest to Sandra would help.

THREE

Tomorrow I am again doing the in-house version of PR. This involves the morning with my nose in files and then using this for content to personalise the course in the afternoon. Currently selling well so book early.

Finally do not be complacent this is serious and scary.

Thanks to our brilliant antipodean techie our long awaited resources page containing all our FREE resources is now available on the site. They are largely in PDF format and Microsoft Word versions are available direct from our Middlesbrough office. There are a couple of missing which we will sort by next week.

Have a dip and see what you get.

Clare Dodgson's reign at the LSC is at an end. The LAPG also comment on the story.

Having suffered back pain over the years I can only express my sympathy too.

Is anyone running a book on a likely successor?

We usually experience a quiet Tuesday following a Monday Bank Holiday. Is this due to the traditional extra holiday enjoyed by many law firms or is this practice now dying out. If you are in work (or reading this at home) let us know you experience.

Do you need cheering up in advance of another wet Bank Holiday weekend? Then mail me and I think I can do just that - and explain why I can't be more explicit here.

Nobody we know struck off this week but bad news on the front cover of the Gazette for the remaining Immigration suppliers.

We have already had a scuffle, if not a fully fledged fist fight, on this issue (it was the one when this happened). It does now look as though we will have to get the boxing gloves out again however.

Unsurprisingly I tend to agree with the Law society commentators rather than Paul Newell. The target would certainly be more "reasonable and achievable" if Paul would first sort out the ridiculous SPAN codes. It remains a complete mystery to me why these reporting codes (from a research project underway when I was at the LAB) are relied upon where there is not even an appropriate end point for a successful green form divorce - the most common controlled work outcome. They are little better with regard to immigration. For instance the fact that robustly advising an asylum seeker, in emergency circumstances, that their case does not justify representation before an adjudicator, constitutes a failure, is lunacy. This target also surely strains lawyers professional responsibilities to clients.

With all the other measures available to them, especially Peer Review, this is a crude and foolish target.

UPDATE

A slightly wicked thought just crossed someone's mind i.e I wish it had been my idea. What is the success rate on LSC granted CLR applications? Is there anyone at the LSC reading this and who knows the answer? Go on blow that whistle! You know you want to.

No time for my planned, longer post on a Peer Review appeal outcome (more gloomy news I'm afraid) as I am off to Manchester for the NW Legal Services Conference. 20 lucky punters get 45 mins of me on "Audits" mid afternoon. And it is optional!!

Someone else spotted, and now comments upon, the attacks on legal aid for parole hearings we discussed here.

Last night I had one of those after hours phone bonanzas you occasionally get in this business. This at a time when Orange reception at my home has become almost impossible.

First call was the perennial shall I/shan't I go for an enhancement on a CDS 7 claim. The clients overriding concern was, with Preferred Supplier looming, not ending up with a taxation rating above 8%. On both cases under discussion we concluded YES, one on a limited basis and globally on the other. That said the last one I advised about, on appeal, got short shrift at Cost Committee. Given that we always provide conservative advice in such matters this is worrying. We have had much better results in the past thought. Given that the main test here is the Broudie - "out of the ordinary" one, is there not a reasonable argument that any CDS 7 meets this threshold nowadays?

Out of a clear blue sky a new Immigration CCA then showed up with the same background story and misery.

I then lost 2 calls to a regular cleint and likewise a colleague and had to use a period as Dads Taxi to try and ring them back - the latter with some fantastic gossip I won't share with you here.

Then got some practice in for this. Tickets still available!!

I don't believe we are the only legal blog. There are blogging communities in all sort of realms, sport, music, politics and even I am told sex. In these e-villages people contact each other, swap stories and links and consequently expand.

It might be that what we, and you, are involved in too small and esoteric a sphere of operation. The CLSA message board is quite busy however and so too I understand is Crimeline's equivalent. But a seeming lack of blogs?

It is very easy, hence I can do it, and takes as little as 5 minutes a day. At an annual cost of around £300 quid it is a highly cost effective communication device. So here is a call for forward thinking legal aid practitioners to get bloggin' too. We and our tame techies would be happy to advise.

We are also more than happy to link to blogs and more traditional web-sites in the side bar - just post you URL.

A friend of this site is fighting the good fight in the media again.

PS - the title above the letter relates to another piece of correspondence about the Eurovision winner.

On behalf of this site, and I anticipate the vast bulk of our readership, can I pass on our hopes and best wishes to the Mighty Leeds United for a timely return to the top flight on Sunday.

News reaches us that the MHLA (Mental Health Lawyers Association) is not taking this lying down.

Not being involved in this nor having been at the meeting I don't know what if any of the proposed action is to be made public and so I won't. We can however put any readers interested or affected in touch.

Continuing this theme a delegate yesterday at Gateshead indicated that she had met a colleague facing the same two key audit reductions - justification for attendance at Hospital Mangers meetings and likewise when instructing experts. For advice avoiding such audit outcomes give us a ring.

In November I started out on our first Peer Review "appeal" (actually its not an appeal in any from you would recognise and is rather the presentation of written representations).

Between now and then we have achieved something of a technical victory regarding the process and the findings are essentially "void".

Now, mid May 2006, we have verbally been informed that our representations have been unsuccessful, we await the detailed decision.

When we won the technical decision I predicted to the client that we would not be successful with the substantive arguments. So it seems. I have to say that this leaves me depressed as to future prospects of success in the reps. process and that the key is to get the right categorisation in the first place.

Not Shakespeare but two offerings from our friends at the LSC this morning.

Firstly a CCA outcome with the audit rating a percentage point (and over 1,000 English pounds on recoupment) out. They are also 2 pence out on the calculation of the amount allowed. Obviously the former is more important than the latter and even so you might think neither of these is too significant. However if this is a fault in the audit software rather than a manual entry error then the impact upon other firms might be more significant.

Next up we are told (by way of standard letter) that neither our clients nor ourselves can attend an SFP appeal. A casual read of the SFP Arrangements Part 4, 4.5 suggests otherwise. Some standard letters to amend then.

You are now anticipating me taking the moral high again aren't you. Sorry I cant resist - firms get slaughtered at audit for mistakes let alone ones which appear systematic failures. And given that erroneous standard letters are receiving such approbation on Peer Review.....

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Those sick of being shouted at me on seminars might prefer my alter ego as guitarist in "slow time mondays". This involves my brother and I in a kind of mid-life crisis version of Teessides "Journey South". (We even have a couple of mutual covers although we did them first and ours are obviously better!). Can't make a link to the flyer for our latest charidy performance but its on two Fridays time, May 26th, in Middlesbrough. A small number of tickets remain.

Those in need of a further shouting at (especially in the North East and East Midlands) don't forget that the speaker tour continues next week.

Another issue which looks set to run and run is this one.

A client reports having been to a "CCA road-show" run by the new Mental Health units. They propose, identically to the very many immigration audits we all have witnessed, retrospectively to apply a significantly more draconian interpretation of contract and cost assessment guidance without consultation nor forewarning. Nothing new there then.

Most instructive are the following statistics garnered at the seminar:

"The LSC said the 2 units have to date conducted 21 audits, 7 of which are cat 1 (3 of those were Liverpool audits) 2 cat 2 and 13 cat 3. They are waiting to see how the appeals work out!"

So 62% of MH practitioners have not been complying with contract to such an extent that they will now face contract notices and the LSC has not spotted this to date (including on previous CCAs).

Hopefully Cost Committees will see through this nonsense.

Those within easy travel distance from London might want to consider going to this.

Apparently Harman will not now be speaking, see below, and it is not clear who will replace her.

You go away for a bit and lots of things happen.

Richard Miller, Director of LAPG comments on the recent reshuffle

"While having three different ministers within the space of eight weeks is a shabby way to treat the legal aid system, we are hopeful that Vera Baird's appointment will prove a good one. She already has a sound understanding of many of the issues facing the legal aid system, and of the needs of the clients who depend on the service. We find it encouraging that she has been
given legal aid as her prime responsibility, rather than having a range
of other responsibilities also making demands on her time. We hope to be
working with her for somewhat longer than we were working with her
predecessor."