Thursday, July 17 2008
Following strong opposition from the Law Society and its members the Legal Services Commission has announced it may reconsider plans to introduce best value tendering (BVT) for criminal defence services.
The Law Society’s opposition to the plans, which were submitted in a detailed response to the consultation, ran in tandem with the opposing views of 95 per cent of the 202 respondents, with all the representative bodies who responded being against the initiative.
Law Society Legal Aid Manager, Richard Miller, says, "Refreshingly, the LSC does at least appear to be acknowledging the views of legal aid practitioners and their professional bodies, so the Society's patient work is proving successful. We look forward to maintaining a constructive dialogue over this and other important policy initiatives.
"Given the strength of opposition from legal aid practitioners, we are pleased that the LSC has acknowledged many of the problems posed by BVT and will now give careful consideration to the issues before any further steps to implement it are taken."
The LSC’s decision to pilot the scheme in one or two areas and carry out an evaluation before any national roll-out takes place has been welcomed by the Law Society.
Richard Miller added, "We hope that the evaluation process will be objective and transparent, and that BVT will not proceed nationally if our concerns about it threatening the sustainability of legally aided criminal defence services are borne out.
"The LSC have accepted the need to work to a more realistic timetable; the pilot means that should BVT ultimately be given the green light, legal aid providers will now have much more time to prepare for the tendering process which was originally scheduled for 2009."
