Civil legal aid bills consultation
Applies to England and Wales
Download the full outcome
Detail of outcome
Having considered the consultation responses, the government has reached a view that the present position, under which providers may elect either to have their bills assessed by HMCTS or the LAA, should be continued for a further period of time, so as to enable the comparative merits of each route to be monitored, and to enable further data to be collected. The government’s present intention is to maintain the current position on an interim basis until November 2022, at which point it will consider the further information, experience and data which it has been possible to collect, and then launch a further consultation over what the medium to long term position should be in relation to such assessments.
Original consultation
Consultation description
This document sets out for consultation the proposal for the transfer of the assessment of all civil and family legal aid bills of costs, other than those involving a detailed inter partes assessment, from Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA).
Additional datasets and analysis to be included in the consultation of proposed changes to Court Assessed Claims
The deadline for responses to the consultation is currently 10 April 2021. So as to ensure that all those interested have a reasonable opportunity to consider the matters set out below, that deadline is now extended to 10 May 2021. Anyone who has already submitted a response to the consultation may amend and resubmit their response within that timeframe.
We are publishing the following additional analysis and datasets in response to a request for further information.
These should be read alongside the consultation document.
- Additional Information - Explanation of Additional Information on Consultation
- Additional Information - Shadow Stats Pack March 2021
- Additional Information - Correspondence HMCTS Legal Aid Bills 1 April 21
- Additional Dataset – LAA Intake and Resource and Performance
- Tab 1: is the intakes and FTE data, showing local operational performance data from the LAA Civil Billing Team
- Tab 2: is the performance against the Civil Billing Team local target
- Tab 3: is the formal LAA KPI performance data and is only usually published by LAA at the end of the year after.
To note, as this data is usually published at the end of the year, there is usually a degree of validation that has not happened. There is potential for there to be slight differences when formally published by the LAA.
Documents
Last updated 9 November 2021 + show all updates
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Consultation response published.
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Consultation closing date extended and additional datasets and analysis published.
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First published.