Law Society survey reveals opposition to Best Value Tendering for legal aid

Thursday 21 February 2008

Plans to introduce Best Value Tendering (BVT) for criminal legal aid provision is proving highly unpopular with the legal profession, with 67 per cent of solicitors coming out ‘strongly against’ the proposals in a recent Law Society survey.

The online survey of 361 legal aid practitioners highlights the opposition amongst the solicitors’ profession to plans put forward by the Legal Services Commission (LSC), which would see a best value bidding process for the right to provide criminal legal aid work.

The questionnaire revealed concerns solicitors have over the plans.

Richard Miller, Law Society legal aid manager, says:
 
"The survey not only highlights that there is a lack of support for BVT across the profession, it also reveals some of the fears solicitors have about the LSC's current proposals."

 
"The fact that 85 per cent said they would not bid for the contracts again when they come up for renewal if they failed first time around starkly demonstrates one of the major problems with the proposals. We have still seen no answer to the question how there can be adequate competition in any second round of bidding."

The broader implications of BVT were revealed by the survey. 56 per cent of criminal legal aid firms responding undertook civil legal aid work, and 74 per cent of those firms considered there would be an adverse impact on their civil legal aid work if they were unsuccessful with their criminal bids.

Richard Miller adds: "The figures reveal the potential knock-on impact on civil and family supply from a lack of criminal legal aid work because the cost for firms of maintaining their legal aid systems for the civil work alone would be too great.”

“In its current form, the BVT proposals clearly risk thinning the availability of legal aid across the board when legal aid provision is already stretched. These consequences must be taken fully into consideration."