In case you missed it here is another announcement regarding new versions of forms. The NB here is that whilst the CDS 14 - 17 are not mandatory until 2009 the CDS 14 can be, but only for new Income Based Employment & Support Allowance, from 27th October.

Sky could well take a lesson from Royal Mail Direct, of all people, who's phone service this morning was exemplary.

Just not that hard really - when you make an effort.

Had a range of contract reporting issues raised this morning including an indication that even though you don't have to include PACE travel times any more you must at least input a zero.

More problematically was a firm required to split their billing, pre and post the change in schedule prefix from 8 to 9, between two upload spreadsheets.

All in all only minor irritants but ones you could probably do without.

Have you seen those adverts on telly offering you either a half price Sky+ box or £50 of M & S vouchers for introducing a friend to the media giant?

Well don't bother. When you come round to claim, after the receipt of an e-mail with a reference number and an obligatory 10 minute wait on the phone guess what. You need your own 12 digit a/c number and that your friends (despite having previously supplied the former). They cannot, despite being Sky, find it for you, transfer you to someone who can or in any way release to you the promised booty. No a further batch of phone calls to other people are required followed by another shot at your "free gift".

Unsurprisingly I have got on with the rest of my day instead. So much for 16 years as a customer. Oh and you can't complain on the phone.

This came up on my wife's iPod shuffle yesterday tea time whilst I was walking the dogs (mine had been stolen by my younger lad).

Good song clever stuff n all.

One of the elements of the "Settlement Deed" between TLS and the LSC was a new and supposedly better contract reconciliation process. That said we have of course experienced circumstances where firms were facing SMP reductions whilst within the 10% protective band.

In a different take yesterday we did a reconciliation for a firm not only keeping up with monthly payments but doing a bit better. In fact they were doing so much better that an upward revision of the SMP was warranted. The LSC however have declined indicating that this would not be made until the firm was over 10% out in the opposite direction, i.e. over 110% of reporting against contract monies paid. This is no small sum and they do fall short. The cash flow benefit of a readjustment will not therefore be forthcoming.

A week of travel, training and on site work with clients has led to light posting here - apologies for that.

I did however here this rumour, as reported in the Gazette, whilst on my travels:

Hickman Handover


Central London firm Hickman & Rose is in talks to hand over its Tottenham legal aid branch to east-end firm TV Edwards. Partner Jane Hickman is a commissioner at the Legal Services Commission.

If Commissioners are taking such steps things must be getting tough.

The current training tour concludes in London tomorrow with, Forth Road Bridge like, the next set of dates are being lined up.

Having received a significant number of billing queries around the new standard fee schemes - demonstrating a continuing degree of misunderstanding - we have decided to update and re run these popular courses.

In civil we are increasingly concerned by firms billing of Level 2 Family Help standard fees - particularly as these can be picked up by the 20% fixed fee margin, KPI.

Regarding Crime is just seems like a sensible time to re run our comprehensive CDS Master-class course again.

Both are of benefit for first time billers, those with remaining doubts about the new schemes or just as a bit of a revision session. If our phone casework is correct there are both costs out there not being claimed and some potentially costly errors which need to be avoided. Just a couple of extra standard fees will justify the course fee.

As ever the civil session is in the morning and CDS in the afternoon. We shall be at:

Manchester - Tuesday 18th November

Leeds/Bradford - Thursday 20th November

Newcastle - Tuesday 25th November

Booking office now open. (In house is also an option).

I had really forgotten how good "Disgraceful" by Dubstar is. (The follow up was however a classic demonstration of the 'difficult second album" syndrome).

I really wanted to post this track but it is not a real video so here is "Stars"

A regular vox pop attack on the current Government, along with the classic "its political correctness gone mad" is to accuse all public agencies of being overly involved in unnecessary "micro management".

This phrase, I admit, did come to mind when I read this letter in this weeks Gazette.

The LSC in Manchester don't appear to be budging on the File Review payment issues. If you want to convince yourself of the contractual position why not have a look at S.22.6, Part A of the Unified Contract, Crime Specification - entitled "Payment for File Review".

There is not an updated version of the FR1 included in this preview schedule of the
new CDS forms.

Curious.

Contrary to the Manchester Regional office's advice, payment for File Review remains under the Unified Civil Contract.

You therefore need to complete your annual FR1 Return form shortly and submit before the end of October.

[SP]

Our civil cost drafting team spotted this issue first because the new CLAIM 1 form will become mandatory from 1st October. Any such claims received on old forms after that date will, apparently, be rejected. Unfortunately the new form will not be published until - yes you've guessed it October 1st. The previews referred to in the link above seem to me to be the current ones e.g. the Claim 1 is an October 2004 version.

We will just sit on our hands till then, then.

A mixed Monday morning bag of stuff as I prepare to travel to Wales for two training events.

More evidence that a KPI audit process is underway comes from another North East firm with notification of an Autumn visit just received. I have also been speaking to someone else with a problem with the Commission on a very unusual matter - so unusual any basic outline here might breach confidentiality.

I have also done a first draft of the flyer for the Solicitor Code of Conduct Rule 5.02 management course. If you want something a bit less theoretical and practical that some of the oppositions offerings (and at a significantly better price) you will not have to hold your breath for much longer.

I joke with my Glaswegian mate that these boys are the exception that proves the "crap scotch rock band" rule. (That all Scottish bands are indeed rubbish).

I listened to two of their albums whilst making Sunday tea last week and this is from one of my desert island albums Peace At Last.

Andy Bean writes:

Wasted loads of time this morning looking for the new Litigators Fee Guidance July 08 as referred to on the NEW October 08 LF1 form. When using my usual route through the LSC web site (Pay rates and Schemes - Litigators Fee Scheme), I could only find the March version, however, when taking our Mr Barnes' route (Crown Court work - Litigators Fee) there it was. What's that all about? I am sure someone somewhere is " Having a laugh".

One useful thing I did find was the notice that new applications for Duty Slots were now being accepted for the next rota with a deadline of 14th November. Existing Duty Solicitors will be automatically transferred across onto the new rotas.

AB

This story still has some legs.

I somehow think that complaining about a minimum rate of £91 per hour is not going to run that well with the general public.

This saga continues. I understand that in the face of one of the key defendants solicitors being a non VHCC panel member the LSC have decided to "declassify" it as such. A good result for the non-panle firm less so for the actual panel firms who will now move from a contract regime to the Litigators fee - especially after having to instruct London Counsel.

So the first, major, high profile case (we have heard of) and it, fairly predictably, falls apart.

It has been thin blogging here due to the ongoing training tour. Meanwhile the world continues to spin, despite yesterdays doomsday experiment.

Demonstrative of this are the two competence plus Peer Review results we have received in the last two days. Both are long-standing clients who have followed our advice pretty much without demur. All in all a couple of satisfying outcomes then.

Some weeks ago I expressed my wish for either British Sea Power or Elbow to win the Mercury this year.

And Elbow did.

Returning to themes of the past we have had a couple of contract reconciliation queries this week. Not of the old "autorecbot" types though, but ones based upon the "new process" identified in the Law Society/LSC settlement document.

Despite the obvious concern (that your contract might not have been correctly credited date to the online billing situation) standard monthly payments are once again being reduced. These have involved both civil and criminal contracts and an attempt to project a 100%, i.e. level, reconciliation as of end of March 2009. Do remember however in crime that you can request a reconciliation percentage of 107.5%. We have a reasonably simple calculation spread sheet should anyone want one.

On a neighbours advice I re-tuned my free-view reception in the bedroom to update the tele-visual delights available to us . This gave us a couple of new music channels we did not previously have. The first song we heard was this (not this version from the disappointing last series of Jools which is spoilt by his ridiculously inappropriate grandstanding on the "old joanna", as he would doubtless call it). Never really come across her before but this is great, and better than Dylan IMHO:

First leg of the training tour over and as ever lots of interesting feedback from delegates. Most pertinent to the course content, an overview of the current range of assessment methods, is confirmation that Peer Review is active outside our region* and that KPI Audits are happening.

Seems like we got the timing right on this course for once.

*The writing of this post was interrupted by a 30 minute call from a firm with a live sample of PR files being boxed up right now.

Last time I was in the European City of Culture I had lunch with a firm representing one of the defendants in the Rhys Jones case. This confirms their exact prediction on the impact of the VHCC panel. Friend of this site Rodney Warren also indicates the CLSAs equally accurate representations on the panel and that it would "lead to perverse outcomes such as this".

We had an interesting exchange with a Crown Court yesterday concerning the completion of an LF1 Litigators Fee claim. We rang to confirm the amount of PPE to be told - sorry can't tell you (strange and counterproductive though this seems - but that is not the point of this post). Oh we said, well we think we have XXX pages - No it's significantly more than that, came the response.

I wonder which number will be used to calculate the claim - my guess is they will always use the lowest PPE figure on offer. Disturbingly in yesterdays case, without our call and that off the cuff remark, we would not even have known that there was a discrepancy in the numbers.

Well it feels like Autumn here today.

Tomorrow is the start of the September training tour, first venue Manchester. Places are still available at all venues though I say it myself it is not a bad course, a summary of all potential assessment mechanisms currently operating. Collecting together all the supporting materials as we speak.

Hope to see some of you in the weeks ahead.

Just had a detailed look at a recently returned Peer Review report. This is one post, unsuccessful, representations. This time the report simply reasserts the original result and does not engage with the representations made at all. This is very frustrating not least given the effort made in putting them together.

As I have said before this is not an appeal process of any meaningful type.

You might, like me, find this explanation of the aims of the consultation on the Family Barristers scheme, somewhat refreshing. There is no pretence that this is anything like "cost neutral" but is expressly about "ways to reduce spending so the department can stay within its budget allocation and protect services to clients".

Not upgrading Solicitor advocates rates to those at the Bar then.

Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year nominations are now open.

Nomination forms have to be completed by 31st October.

Get going!