News story

Crime news: 2015 Duty Provider Crime Contracts - invitation to tender

Information for those eligible to tender for a 2015 Duty Provider Crime Contract.

Image of a contract

Further to the government’s response to the ‘Transforming legal aid: crime duty contracts’ consultation, we’re now publishing the following information for those eligible to tender for a 2015 Duty Provider Crime Contract:

  • invitation to tender for 2015 duty provider crime contract
  • 2015 Duty Provider Crime Contract documentation
  • indicative (example only) duty rotas for new contracts

Links to all key documents can be found below this story.

Invitation to tender

This is the second stage of the procurement process for duty provider contracts and is restricted to those organisations who have been notified of our intention to award them a 2015 Own Client Crime Contract (the first stage of the procurement process).

The invitation to tender has been issued through the eTendering system and eligible organisations can find the relevant link to the system in their individual messages or via the link to the eTendering portal on the LAA tenders page.

The deadline for submission of tenders is 12 noon on Thursday 29 January 2015. Contract work will begin on 1 October 2015.

The ‘Information for applicants’ (IFA) document provides full information about the tender process and you’re advised to read this carefully. A link to the IFA can be found below this story.

Applicant organisations can ask any questions about the IFA until 12 noon on 15 December 2014. Questions of wider interest will be published on the tender pages in a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document on 22 December.

Please be sure to check the eTendering message board regularly between now and the end of the tender. Each applicant organisation is strongly advised to ensure several members of staff are set up to access messages on the eTendering system so that if other colleagues are on leave, messages can still be dealt with as necessary.

The ‘Technical Support and Guidance’ link in the eTendering system provides detailed guidance on how to do this.

2015 duty provider crime contract

The contract governs the provision of criminal legal aid services for which we’re currently tendering. Drafts of the four key areas of the contract (Standard terms, Specification, Schedule and Contract for signature) as well as a series of associated documents, have today been published on the contract pages.

A link to the contract and related documents can be found below this story.

Indicative (example only) duty rotas for new contracts

To further help the profession to understand the LAA’s approach to allocation of duty rota slots under the 2015 Duty Provider Crime Contract, we’ve published indicative rotas for each procurement area.

These are provided for illustrative purposes only: they are not the actual rota allocations but example versions of an allocation for your reference. Slots will not be allocated until the tender process has completed and contracts have been awarded.

A link to these indicative (example only) duty rotas is below this story.

Further information

Key web pages and documents published today:

Published 27 November 2014