We received 2,317 responses to the Transforming Legal Aid: Next Steps consultation from a variety of respondents including solicitors, barristers, representative bodies, the Judiciary, and members of the public.
The document sets out the Government Response to consultation. In summary the key decisions are to:
Transforming Legal Aid
The Government will continue to engage with the Bar Council, CBA, Circuit Leaders and the Law Society.
Details for advocates (PDF)
Details for litigators (PDF)
Nearly 16,000 responses were received following the Transforming Legal Aid consultation published in April. In addition to these, the Ministry of Justice held 14 stakeholder events throughout the consultation period. The responses are summarised at Annex B.
All views expressed have been carefully considered and it is on the basis of these that the proposals set out in Part 1 have been determined. In the case of two of the original Transforming Legal Aid proposals – those to introduce competitive tendering and our proposed reforms to criminal advocacy fees – it was decided to undertake a second phase of consultation on refined proposals.
The KPMG report of 25 February 2014 has been republished on 14 March 2014. In the republished document, the table on page 53 of the report has been amended. The following changes have been made to the figures on average duty contract size (£m):
The analysis and conclusions in the report were based on the figures on page 49 so these changes have no impact on the remainder of the report.
On 3 October we published an updated version of the further consultation document and Annexes G and H to address questions from practitioners and make some corrections.
In light of these clarifications and amendments, we have decided to extend the consultation deadline by ten working days. As a result, the consultation will now end on 1 November. We encourage all interested stakeholders to engage constructively in this process.
Summary of amendments:
Please note that the fees at paragraph 3.61, 3.65 and table G3 in Annex G include VAT. All other fees exclude VAT. Please note, as proposed at paragraph 3.73, the cost of any travel and subsistence disbursements would be remunerated separately. However, the figures stated at paragraphs 3.61 and 3.65 include the average claim cost of travel and subsistence disbursements. The proposed fees excluding the cost of travel and subsistence disbursements would be £192.54 (including VAT) for the proposed national fixed fee for police station work and £310.45 (including VAT) for the proposed national fixed fee for magistrates’ court work. Note, the £310.45 magistrates' court work fee includes the travel and waiting time component, where it is paid. We have also updated the Impact Assessment for the Procurement of Criminal Legal Aid Services to include a revised Table 2.
Footnotes are contained within the 'more information' sections on each page.
Please be aware that on the evening of 6 September the following corrections were made to the previously published version of the consultation document:
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