BVT for civil legal aid could start next year

Best value tendering for civil legal aid contracts could start next year, it has emerged.

Derek Hill, Legal Services Commission policy director, told a press conference that the areas which would pilot civil BVT were currently being chosen and their names would be revealed in September.

He said that if the LSC decided to go ahead, the pilot could start in the first half of next year.

'It's something we would like to do, but we have no definite plans,' Hill said.

It is understood that the move would require ministerial approval.

BVT for criminal legal aid contracts has met with hostility from all sides of the profession (see Solicitors Journal 30 June 2009).

Roger Smith, director of JUSTICE, said BVT was 'madness' whether for civil or criminal work.

'It will be a disaster and it will end in tears,' he said.

Smith said that if LSC wanted to control costs they should do it 'more honestly' by controlling the cost of each case through graduated and fixed fees.

'The railways have provided an example of the difficulties of competitive tendering,' he said, 'It's an odd time to choose to proceed with it.'

Steve Hynes, director of the Legal Action Group, said he was not sure if the LSC was committed to BVT for civil.

'It's going to be a political decision and we assume it will be Lord Bach's in-tray this summer,' he said.

Meanwhile the LSC has outlined plans for the new civil legal aid contracts, starting in April 2010.

Carolyn Regan, chief executive of the LSC, said that solicitors wishing to bid for the new combined social welfare (housing, benefits and debt) contracts in consortia with other firms or advice agencies will, if successful, be offered separate but linked contracts.

She said that there were concerns that small solicitors' firms and sole practices would lose out if they were forced to become single legal entities before bidding for the contracts.

'We want to maintain standards and quality without pushing everyone down the merger route,' she said.

Regan said that bidding for the new civil contracts would take place online, cutting the amount of work for LSC staff from 'two days to two hours.'

She said the LSC planned that the civil budget would stay at its current level, but did not rule out the possibility that new funds could be found through the savings from means testing for criminal legal aid in the Crown Court.

The LSC intends to cut the number of unrealistic bids for civil work by requiring firms to deliver at least 85 per cent of matter starts allocated each year.

Hill said the LSC had no plans to use the new civil legal aid contract to reduce the number of firms doing civil work and in the case of mental health, he wanted it to increase.

He added the issue of fees for family legal aid work would be dealt in a separate LSC document published later in the month.