Here is a post to wish all readers a Merry Christmas and hopefully a happy and prosperous New Year. Andy and I will be available on the mobiles but the office will be shut from tea time today.

Enjoy the break, for those getting one, and see you in the New Year

In front of me today are two letters from two different firms in the same region, resetting their SMPs for January. I am put in mind of this post about a month ago.

In case 1 the LSC use a "12 month average" for their forward projection in the second 6 months. In both cases the period chosen benefited the LSC in that it lead to the reduction of the SMP. In both cases they also only allowed a 5%, rather than a 7.5%, "balance of payments" figure, again to the firm's detriment.

Both are now seeking reviews.

The post consultation Preferred Supplier Scheme is announced and outlined here. Given that I am in a hurry today you will have to wait for my considered thoughts. Briefly however some common sense does seem to have prevailed especially with regard to financial assessment/disclosure. There are a series of new acronyms to learn, KPI and RAG for instance, and the process is to begin more flexibly from next year. Most disturbing are the indication that electronic case management might become compulsory.

Here is the LAPG take on things:

"The development of preferred supplier has been delayed for too long, and we are glad to see some movement at last, although it is disappointing that even now, the exact roll-out of the scheme still cannot be announced. It is essential to the future of the legal aid scheme that the LSC takes a more hands-off approach to suppliers, and preferred supplier should enable them to do this.

"However, at current rates of remuneration, there are not enough suppliers operating at peer review levels one and two. There have been no increases for five years and according to the DCA, there is not the slightest hope of any in the foreseeable future. Quality cannot possibly even be maintained at current levels, let alone increased, without improved rates. While overheads go up continuously and remuneration remains frozen for years, quality is the only variable left, and must go down. That is market forces in operation."

Back in October we indicated out intention to develop this site. I am shortly to head up the A1 to spend some time with our web design people in Edinburgh with this in mind.

We have some ideas of our own but some user comment would be helpful so any thoughts by e-mail, phone or in the comments box would be gratefully received.

In the course of doing the job described below I idly glance at the "Independent Peer Reviewers Conflict of Interest Form" to check out new addittions to the panel. At the third row on the second page of the list I come across a new reviewer called "Dummy Data". I will be advising the firm to identify a conflict of interest here not least because you don't want your files reviewed by someone with that give away first name.

Andy is in the office with me today looking at another live PR sample.

Rather than another post about burnishing this sample brings the issue of initial instruction pro formas to mind.

Now this is a long running, if now something of a staged, debate at JRS. For those who have not heard me talk about it this previously I tend to take a devils advocate stance - anyone who cannot record initial instructions on blank paper should not be doing the job. Rather more sensibly the prevailing attitude is that an initial instructions aide memoir, in all categories, is a valuable tool.

This sample tests these viewpoints as it includes files begun both before and after our involvement with the firm. There are therefore files containing our standard PACE recording form and others with blank paper recording. Looking at these with "peer review glasses" on I have to say that the former are much easier to follow, and consequently grade. Both approaches do however require legible handwriting!

You can download the above from the sidebar.

If you have been following our coverage of the CLAC saga here is the next chapter.

I have just spoken with someone with a current "below competence" rating about becoming Peer Reviewer (having been personally canvassed by the LSC both before, and now despite, this finding). The conversation veered into controversial territory around the question - does becoming a reviewer represent "collaboration" with the enemy?

At one time, as a professional contrarian, I took a similar stance on membership of Cost Committees. I have subsequently revised this view and have not carried it forward into my assessment of PR. My caller, perhaps understandably takes the alternative viewpoint.

Given that in Focus 52 they are advertising for reviewers in 7 civil categories, perhaps now is the time for that very debate.

We know that some LSC people read this site (though none of them have requested a mouse mat yet - would it be a disciplinary offence?).

On that basis here is a question that you might like to consider/answer.

Option 2 in the "Slot Allocation" chapter of the Market Stability Measures (download link not possible) proposes taking a snapshot of firms allocated slots, as of 28th November 2006, to determine allocation to the new scheme.

How will firms who merge post 28th November be treated?

Our friends a the CLSA are holding a National Meeting, open to all CDS Solicitors, to discuss the current situation.

It will be on 10th January 2007 at the NEC in Birmingham.

There is a new-look Focus (No. 52) out now. (You will have to download it from the LSC because it is "too large" for here). The content is less new and predictably concentrates on the content of recent consultation papers.

Here is some timely advice from the LSC.

I think it is aimed at the general public however it is difficult to read it without a wry smile. It would however be in bad taste to parody it here, not least because last night I discovered that a close friend has just been made redundant.

Nonetheless under their sub headline "Tips for a debt free Christmas" one might sensibly append - Plan for a Legal Aid free New Year.

We had a discussion at one of my Peer Review sessions last week about the impact of individual file scores on the the final result. One contention was that a couple of bad scores can result in a bad overall outcome. Whilst we have witnessed this leading to Threshold Competent results (especially where Competent + was the desired result) we have not experienced the same with, say, Below Competence findings (of which we were notified of two last week).

This took place in a week in which some hand annotated notes were returned (accidentally) with the firms files. These involve a number being placed alongside each file. There are 6 - 1s, 5 - 2s, 6 - 3s and 3 - 4s we guess they represent individual file scoring ranging from 1 Excellent to 4 Below Competence.

Anyone like to guess the overall rating?

Will put up the answer later.

ANSWER