I cannot come up with a themed tune which sums up the range of emotions we have encountered this week so here are BSP who I hope to see in Stockton tomorrow night;

There isn't much!

The final version of Generic Grounds will definitely not be available until Monday. We are still assessing and sorting appeals. If we have told you that you have a substantive appeal please bear with us I am now going to wait until Sunday to do these. I hope I will get a full day of peace and quiet to make sure they are properly dealt with without interruptions every 2 minutes.

Mrs SP has to work too so the dogs are in for a boring day.

It is obvious what the headline story is in the Gazette is this week.

The story contains the quote Andy and I could both remember, but could not trace, despite hours of trying earlier in the week. We wanted it for the Generic Appeals.

Former LSC chief executive Carolyn Regan had written to the Society in January stating ‘it is not our intention that the tender round should significantly reduce the provider base’.

Well she was either "misspeaking" or they have created a very significant and highly damaging unintended consequence. You decide which.

For those who have, and intend to use even if only in part, our first draft Generic Appeal reps please note that I intend a further section. It is highly unlikely that this will be completed until Monday.

Just come across this in the e-portal

Please ignore the last message sent to you via this message board by us. This message was sent in error and had another Applicant Organisation's notification letter attached. Please do not open the attachment entitled "censored"

The weight of these appeals is beginning to get a little unbearable, hence the silence here at a time when you would expect us to blogging like mad. Please bear with us we will get back to you as soon as we can, however right now every call puts that back just a little bit further.

We have just sent out "Generic" grounds for consideration and these are available to any other readers. Just send in an e-mail request.

The Law Society are seeking an urgent review and seem to have realised that the scale of it all. I have just been told it is in the scale of 2,400 contracts down to 1,300.

My current considered opinion regarding Civil procurement;

As you can well imagine we are swamped, totally swamped.

So much so that we are struggling just to manage basic incoming e-mail traffic.

If you have NOT heard from us by Monday 2pm please do get in touch however, we appreciate that this will be difficult. If you could bear with us until then and not chase for an update we would be very grateful. This will also help us to get to your case more quickly in any event.

There do seem to us to be a significant, and utterly unacceptable, level of mis-marking of bids, predominantly with regard to panel memberships. How the LSC will unpick this mess is beyond me at present* not least that currently successful firms may well suffer negative consequences as a result of successful appeals.

At some stage I will put pen to paper on my general thoughts but no time now.

Would people appreciate a change to the advertised Webinar next week and a summary of the state of affairs instead?

*excepting the Friday song

Yesterday afternoon turned into a very depressing massacre of the family legal aid supply base. A constant flow of longstanding, and mainly locally significant firms, staring down their last few months of publicly funded practice.

The perversity of many of the outcomes are striking too; a sole practitioner with hastily "recruited" panel accredited consultants, on short hours, carrying off sackfuls of NMSs from failed larger suppliers with the wherewithal to actually deliver them, being just one.

I will spare you my personal views right now and cut to the chase.

If you want our advice on appeal PLEASE DO NOT RING. Rather send an E-mail with the subject Family Appeal and containing your login details. If you can attach your notification letter this saves us valuable time. We will contact you back asap but it might not be until after the weekend.

Right now appeals seem to be breaking down into three groups

Substantive - mis-marking of selection criteria, especially regarding panel memberships

Generic - general complaints about the irrationality of the process and its outcome

Other firm reps - complaints that the process has been compromised by inaccurate bids from other firms.

We are helping with the first - though the basic advice is get proof from TLS or Resolution. We hope, in concert with TLS and LAPG to have some outline generics by next week. And we are trying to keep out of the latter!

Anyone who reads this and is prepared to put head above the parapet and go to press via TLS and LAPG can make contact with them through ourselves.

In the meantime apologies to prospective delegates but we have had to cancel Fridays webinar.

Finally the following is from the Tenders Update section of the LSC website - does this compromise the whole process?

Please Note: unfortunately some letters sent out on Monday 19 July contained errors in selection criteria scoring. This only affects the following procurement areas:

Calderdale, Devon, Doncaster, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, Hillingdon, Newcastle upon Tyne, North Derbyshire, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire

On 20 July, we sent out corrected letters to all affected Applicant Organisations. If you are in one of the affected areas, please check the relevant ITT message board for your corrected letter.

What a day to return from holidays (as the comments box on the post below captures).

Along with those still enduring paranoid waits there are now those looking at severe reductions to their matter start allocations, failure at branch offices and a sprinkling of firms who tried for and didn't get new SWL categories.

We are also getting the relief, rather than, jubilation of those firms who have now been confirmed at a level they are happy with.

Meanwhile my deadline nightmare continues.

We have just had our first confirmation of a positive outcome from a retainer client whose name begins with 'A'. If they are contacting firms by region they are in West Yorkshire.

Please check your e portal for any messages.

Just received confirmation that the Employment Tender results are beginning to filter through. Unfortunately this was a negative result.

We are also aware that a few London firms have been notified of the result of their Family Tenders and therefore this process is now underway.

Advice as always is to check your points to ensure no mistakes have been made.

Some clients but not all seemed to have received yet another message (posted 4pm Friday) on the e-portal with regards to applying for new account numbers. The problem seems to be that until the documentation is completed and returned in the good old fashion way "in the post!' new account numbers will not be issued !

How then can new or existing firms with new offices make Legal Aid applications on or after the 14th July without these account numbers. The letter also goes on to ask that if firms have been issued new account numbers via their Relationship Managers can you let them know.

So what came first the Contract or the Account Number ?

Please check your e-portal fro such messages if you fall into the above criteria.

Andy Bean

Yesterday I had anticipated a barrage of phone calls regarding the family tendering results but nothing. Instead it was an influx of anxious e-mails and phone calls from criminal clients who had received a message from the LSC requesting information which according to them,had not been previously supplied. Such as Indemnity forms, Supervisors forms and Prison Law Supervisors forms.

There were and are many varying outcomes such as Supervisors forms which had been clearly attached to the Tender information forms or Firms which had applied for Prison Law and had not realised. !?

Indemnity forms were the favourite so
1) Did you or did you not submit them ?
2) If so how, post or scanned and sent via the e-portal ?

If you receive such a message please undertake the above checks then if still struggling give me a call but I am single handed this week so you may have to leave a message.

Andy Bean

Does anyone out there know of anybody who might be interested in working for JRS?

If you do could you ask them to give us a ring please.

I am on the verge of staying at home next week and letting the family go to Spain on their own - would save on kennel fees though!

I genuinely do not know how I will get all I have to, done by Thursday - it might be a long night!

Thanks to those who have rung about contracting problems further release of information, especially Family/SWL decisions, is anticipated shortly. This will probably be whilst I am away, leaving Andy with an unenviable week of almost certain chaos. Think I might have to take a laptop with me though that is likely to be unpopular.

We need the technology to replicate ourselves.

Dentist, the vets and a flurry of new problems kept me away from here yesterday.

We are very keen to hear from any of the growing band of suppliers who have had a bid rejected as "incomplete" or refused on the basis failing to meet "essential criteria" especially supervisor ratios. The LSC are claiming there is not even a right of appeal in the first set of circumstances

All information dealt with in confidence.

Live next Monday Middlesbrough Empire the best live act of all time;

I had a fascinating day out yesterday where I might have glimpsed the future of effective Legal Aid practice. For the first time in years - if ever - I've been genuinely impressed by an IT project which could revolutionise delivery of CDS work and probably more.

We are at pilot stage at the moment so don't want to give too much away but there may well be some exciting stuff to demonstrate in the early Autumn.