Legal Aid Agency 'could take months' to fix bugs in IT system, warns costs lawyers

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is in 'institutional denial' over fundamental flaws in its new IT system, the Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) has said.

The LAA's client and cost management system (CCMS) will be compulsory for all civil legal aid providers to use, despite the ACL now warning that unless this changes the preparation and payment of bills will be seriously delayed.

In a comprehensive report on the problems practitioners are experiencing with the CCMS, the ACL claims it actually 'deteriorates existing business processes' with poorly implemented functionality, while some required functionality has been 'missed completely'.

Written by the ACL's legal aid group, the report says it can take months for the LAA to fix bugs, even when they relate to core issues, such as the wrong remuneration rate.

'There is even a lack of understanding about the basics of billing, like the difference between an estimate and an actual,' said the report. 'This often ignores case law, court procedure rules and even requirements in the LAA's own contract with providers.'

The ACL has therefore called on the LAA to recognise the problems with the system and delay its implementation if they cannot be fixed in time.

The report concludes: 'Bills will take longer to complete and are likely to be held up by requests from the LAA for standard information that cannot be initially included within the bill, and are more likely to be rejected due to errors caused by process deterioration. This will result in significant delays to payment, which will impact upon the cash flow of providers who are already operating on profit margins that do not allow significant (if any) contingency.'

'Sorry state'

The agency has spent several years building and piloting CCMS in an attempt to bring online how it administers £670m of its annual civil legal aid budget. The system becomes mandatory from 1 October 2015 and is projected to cost £69m over its lifetime.

Paul Seddon, chair of the ACL's legal aid group, commented: 'The fact is that CCMS billing has been built against a flawed business process, after the LAA tried to change something it has not taken the time to understand. In doing so, the LAA has ignored both the essential characteristics of what makes it work at the moment and the basics of information management: to make the right information available to the right people at the right time.

'Mandating this system in its current state will obstruct the efficient provision of what remains of legal aid, further constraining representation. We call on the LAA to make an honest appraisal of the current sorry state of CCMS and take action accordingly.'

Endorsing the findings

The ACL's report has been endorsed by other groups pressing the LAA to rethink its strategy, such as the Law Society, the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, the Mental Health Lawyers Association, the Legal Action Group, and Resolution.

Speaking at Resolution's national conference in Brighton last month, Jo Edwards, chair of the membership body for family practitioners, said: 'At the last count, the [LAA] had spent over £35m on this ill-fated project. When set against the scale of the legal aid cuts introduced in April 2013, and the huge number of vulnerable people now deprived of access to justice who could benefit from some of this budget being used to fund initial legal advice, this is nothing short of a national scandal.'

A spokeswoman for Resolution recently added: 'The CCMS is not fit for purpose and will cause serious problems for practitioners if made mandatory in October in its present condition.'

Law Society president Andrew Caplen said he looked forward to the LAA's urgent response to the report. 'If the problems have been correctly identified, it is difficult to see how the system could currently be considered fit to become mandatory,' he added.

Carol Storer, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, remarked: 'It is difficult enough to carry out legal aid work without fighting an IT system that is clunky, frustrating, and in some respects is simply unworkable.'

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Mental Health Lawyers Association said it too supported the findings given members' concerns that CCMS is 'not working satisfactorily'.

Steve Hynes, director of the Legal Action Group, an independent charity, added: 'Through a combination of cuts and stifling bureaucracy, legal aid providers are already struggling. If they are forced to adopt the CCMS system, it could be the last straw for many, with dire consequences for access to justice for the public.'

Russell Conway, a senior partner at Oliver Fisher Solicitors, recently told SJ that the CCMS was just another government 'IT horror show'.

An LAA spokesperson said: 'We are introducing the CCMS because it will deliver an improved service to providers than the existing paper-based system. We deliberately introduced a long lead-in before the system becomes mandatory to give firms time to prepare and train staff.

'More than 1,000 providers are already using CCMS and the LAA has received more than 33,000 applications to date. Approximately half of all new applications now come in via CCMS and this figure is increasingly weekly. We have worked closely with providers and have enhanced the system following feedback. A number of further key changes will be made in advance of October.'