Consultation outcome

Transforming legal aid: crime duty contracts

• From: Ministry of Justice
• Published: 24 September 2014
• Last updated: 27 November 2014 — See all updates

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

This consultation has concluded

Download the full outcome

Transforming Legal Aid: crime duty contracts consultation response

PDF, 341KB, 40 pages

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Detail of outcome

We received 3,942 responses to the Transforming Legal Aid: Crime Duty Contracts consultation, mostly from legal aid providers.

The document sets out the government response to consultation.

In summary the key decisions are:

• to tender 527 duty provider contracts, two more than originally proposed in February.
• to introduce payment for travelling times in excess of 1.5 hours and to relax the office requirements in the split procurement areas.
• the tender for the Duty Provider Contracts will also open on 27 November, and will remain open until 29 January. Services under both new contracts will start on 01 October 2015.
• subject to the additional consideration we announced in March 2014, it remains our intention to implement the second fee reduction in July 2015.

Legal Aid Agency tender website for the Duty Work Provider contracts.

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Original consultation

Summary

A consultation on reports undertaken by Otterburn Legal Consulting and KPMG in relation to the proposed duty work contracts for criminal legal aid services.

This consultation was held on another website.

This consultation ran from
4pm on 24 September 2014 to 11:45pm on 15 October 2014

Consultation description

Earlier this year the Ministry of Justice, following detailed engagement with the Law Society, published proposals to help create a more sustainable legal aid market in criminal litigation.

As previously announced, we’ve allowed an unlimited number of own client contracts for providers who meet the required quality standards. We also stated our intention to offer the highest number of duty work contracts recommended - 525 - following specialist research from Otterburn Legal Consulting LLP and KPMG LLP.

We’re now consulting on the reports undertaken by Otterburn Legal Consulting and KPMG (including the Ministry of Justice’s response to the analysis), the findings/assumptions used in their analysis, as well as the number of duty provider contracts that should be tendered in the forthcoming procurement exercise.by Otterburn Legal Consulting and KPMG.

Published 24 September 2014
Last updated 27 November 2014 + show all updates

1. 27 November 2014

   Consultation response published.

2. 24 September 2014

   First published.