Tag Archives: housing

by | August 17, 2017 · 7:48 pm

HPCDS tender – LAA events start soon

Further to its announcement, which we covered on the blog yesterday, the LAA has provided further information about its market engagement events for those interested in finding out more and providing an opportunity to influence the way Courts are grouped together in the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme tenders.

This is important as these bids will include an element of price competition, so the more you understand the LAA’s ratioanle, the better. They start very soon:

  • Birmingham – 29 August
  • Manchester – 30 August
  • Leeds – 4 September
  • London – 5 and 7 September
  • Liverpool – 6 September
  • Bristol – 8 September

We hope all practitioners thinking of submitting bids will take up this opportunity. You can find out more information, including how to book, here.

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by | August 16, 2017 · 8:58 pm

Timetable for 2018 civil/family contracts announced

The LAA announced its long-awaited timetable for civil/family contracts today. This is for face to face contracts and the CLA telephone service.

The tender process for new contracts will open in mid-September (exact date not specified) and remain open for 8 weeks, closing in November.

The LAA expects to notify successful bidders about face to face contracts in March 2018, and the CLA telephone service contracts in May 2018.

The start of the new contracts will not be 1 April 2018, as previously announced; but 1 September 2018 (but see more information on Housing Court Possession Duty Scheme (HPCDS) contracts below).

In the meantime, current contracts will be extended.

The LAA announced in its headline intentions document in January 2017, that contracts in the following areas of law would be awarded to organisations meeting its suitability tests and able to meet quality standards: Family; Housing, Debt and Welfare Benefits; Immigration & Asylum (including IRCs); Claims against Public Authorities (currently known as ‘Actions Against the Police etc’); Community Care; Clinical Negligence; Mental Health; and Public Law.

The Ministry of Justice also published its response to the consultation on the tender process for HPCDS work. The Ministry remains convinced that larger procurement areas will result in the contracts being financially sustainable. It will also include an element of price competition in these bids. However, it intends to conduct a series of market engagement events to inform the eventual tender process in relation to scheme boundaries. We hope Housing practitioners will attend the events and provide the Ministry with feedback about their local areas.

You will need a housing/debt contract to obtain a HPCDS contract, so the tender will open in October and run for 6 weeks. The outcomes will be notified in June 2018. New HPCDS contracts will start on 1 October 2018.

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by | May 2, 2017 · 9:03 pm

Civil/Family contracts for 2018 tender postponed

The Legal Aid Agency has announced today that it has had to postpone the civil and family contracts tender, expected to open in May, until after the election.

No new date has been set and the Agency will issue more information when it is able to do so.

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by | March 18, 2017 · 3:01 pm

Legal Aid Agency changes start date for civil and family tender

On the 20th of January, the LAA announced that it intended to run a two-stage tender process for civil and family contracts to start in April 2018 and that stage 1 would probably start in April 2017, with stage 2 in August 2017. In February they announced that a family mediation tender would open at the same time.

On Friday 17 March, they announced that instead they would be running both the selection criteria and invitation to tender stages together in May 2017.

Practitioners will need to remain vigilant and watch out for further LAA announcements. They can be found here.

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by | January 21, 2017 · 6:56 pm

Civil and family tender timetable announced

The LAA has announced that the tender process for civil and family legal aid contracts to take effect in April 2018 will actually start this April, 2017. They will announce their intentions for family mediation contracts in due course. The announcement can be found here.

The agency has reverted to a two-stage process. Stage 1, a selection questionnaire (previously known as a pre-qualification questionnaire – PQQ), followed by an invitation to tender (ITT) in Ausgust 2017 for the following categories:

  • Family
  • Housing, debt and welfare benefits
  • Immigration/asylum (including IRCs)
  • Claims against public authorities (currently known as Actions against the police etc)
  • Community Care
  • Clinical Negligence
  • Mental Health
  • Public Law

The LAA stresses that the tender in relation to the above will simply test organisations’ ability to meet minimum tender requirements and all organisations which can do so will be awarded contracts. However, organisations seeking higher numbers of matter starts may need advanced panel accreditation. Family practitioners will be able to apply for licensed work only contracts if they wish.

Timetable

  • SQ opens – April 2017
  • Notification of SQ outcome – June 2017
  • ITTs open (except HPCDS) – August 2017
  • Notification of ITT outcome – December 2017
  • Verifiation process – January – March 2018
  • Contract starts – 1 April 2018

Housing Possession Court Duty Schemes

Those interested in Housing Court Possession Duty Schemes are warned that the government is currently consulting on whether to increase the size of the schemes, so that some could cover a number of courts. They are also considering an element of price competition in relation to HPCDS work. At first sight, it is difficult to see how economies of scale could result by simply grouping courts together as proposed. The consultation opened on Friday 20 January and will close on 17 March 2017. You can download the consultation paper and respond here.

  • Notification of Housing, Debt and Welfare Benefits contracts will be prior to the HPCDS ITT opening – in October 2017
  • HPCDS ITT opens – October 2017
  • HPCDS ITT outcome – January 2018

More flexibility

The LAA says that the new contracts are likely to be more flexible in a number of ways which practitioners may find helpful:

  • Allowing remote working arrangements such as delivery of advice by email, telephone or video conferencing where appropriate
  • Ability to self grant up to an additional 50% of matter starts over those awarded
  • Ability to reallocate up to 50% of matter starts between your own offices (subject to LAA consent)
  • All organisations will receive 5 miscellaneous matter starts in addition to their category matter starts

Likely changes you may need to plan for

  • Stricter definition of ’employ’ in relation to supervisors
  • Changes to the mental health supervisor standard
  • Limits to representation by counsel/agents in mental health
  • New mental health capacity (welfare) accreditation will become mandatory for that work when appropriate
  • The immigration/asylum contract will reflect changes to the IAAS scheme
  • Immigration/asylum bidders in higher lot sizes will also be able to bid for IRC work

Telephone contracts

The LAA will also be tendering for specialist telephone work, including an element of price competition in the following areas of law:

  • Family
  • Housing and debt
  • Discrimination
  • Special educational needs

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by | July 13, 2016 · 9:17 pm

Supreme Court judgment in residence test case

The Supreme Court has issued its judgment in the residence test. As we reported at the time of the hearing, the Court took the very unusual step of upholding the appeal partway through the case. It’s now given its reasons.

In The Public Law Project, R (on the application of) v Lord Chancellor [2016] UKSC 39, Lord Neuburger gave the only judgment, the other six justices agreeing. He only dealt with the first ground of appeal – ultra vires – it being agreed that, as the case won on that ground alone it wasn’t necessary to deal with the other ground (discrimination).

Lord Neuburger held that LASPO defines what civil legal aid services are to be made available by reference to the issue of law, the nature of the services and the need and ability to pay of the individual requiring the services. There is nothing in the Act that excludes groups of people on the grounds of personal circumstances or personal characteristics beyond that – such as resident status – and nothing in the Act that enables such an exclusion to be brought in using the powers given to make secondary legislation. He also noted the strong presumption in statutory interpretation that every Act applies not just to persons belonging to the territory affected by the Act, but also to “foreigners…within its territory”.

We’ve remarked before on the varying interpretations of the statutory purpose of LASPO. Lord Neuburger addressed that as well; “the purpose of Part 1 of LASPO was, in very summary terms, to channel civil legal aid on the basis of the nature and importance of the issue, an individual’s need for financial support, the availability of other funding, and the availability of other forms of dispute resolution. The exclusion of individuals from the scope of most areas of civil legal aid on the ground that they do not satisfy the residence requirements of the proposed order involves a wholly different sort of criterion from those embodied in LASPO and articulated in the 2011 paper.” This is a helpful formulation, putting the emphasis back on targeting need rather than reducing costs.

However, although it’s now clear that the residence test can’t be brought in by statutory instrument, it still could be done by primary legislation. The previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, made clear he supported that – though no legislative plans had been announced. It remains to be seen whether Theresa May – and whoever she appoints as Lord Chancellor – agrees.

 

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by | June 17, 2016 · 9:50 am

As you were – merits tests back to 50% or above

We reported the likely impact of the Court of Appeal in The Director of Legal Aid Casework and Lord Chancellor v IS [2016] EWCA Civ 464. The Court found that the merits test, limiting legal aid to cases with a prospect of success over 50% was lawful.

Following the earlier decision by Collins J, the LAA had widened the merits test in 2015 to include the possibility of funding in cases which were poor or borderline. The LAA has now told the representative bodies that with immediate effect, it will no longer fund applications for civil legal aid representation certificates with less than a 50%, or borderline, prospect of success. It says practitioners should do the same when exercising delegated functions.

The LAA says that it is ‘considering’ changes to the Civil Legal Aid (Merits Criteria) Regulations, which set out the merits tests, but no changes have yet been made. It’s not clear to us that the LAA has the power to refuse applications that meet the criteria in the regulations (including the borderline and poor criteria), or that it would be acting lawfully if it did so, unless the regulations were actually amended. However, it has made it clear that it will not fund such cases with immediate effect.

This could change if permission to appeal to the Supreme Court is given; but for now practitioners need to take this into account when using delegated functions or making applications to the LAA.

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by | October 14, 2015 · 9:15 pm

LAA changes assessment of emergency certificates

Yesterday, the LAA informed the representative bodies that it would be changing its approach to assessment of emergency certificates immediately. As far as we are aware they have not made a public announcement yet. Usually, such lack of notice would attract criticism; but perhaps practitioners should hold fire on this occasion.

First, because the issue relates to the situation where an emergency certificate expires before a substantive is issued. As emergency certificates last for eight weeks, the change will not affect people immediately. Second, because the change is an improvement for practitioners.

Up to the change, if a substantive certificate followed seamlessly with no break in time, the limitation on the substantive would also apply to the period covered by the emergency certificate (as per point of principle 58).  However, if there was a break between the two, work in the intervening period would not be covered and the limitations to each would be applied separately.

From 13 October, the LAA said it will treat work done in any intervening period as being conducted ‘at risk’, and will be paid for if the substantive certificate covers all the work undertaken.

We understand that the LAA will shortly be updating the Electronic Handbook and making an official announcement of this change.

 

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by | October 11, 2015 · 7:30 pm

News from LAPG conference

As always, LAPG conference was packed with essential information, inspiring speeches (particularly Richard Miller from the Law Society and Steve Hynes from LAG) and practitioners sharing hints and tips and generally networking. Lawyers could get their fix of black letter law as well. People who couldn’t make it were able to follow on Twitter – we even started trending! Who says people aren’t interested in legal aid?

Hugh Barrett, Director of Legal Aid Commissioning at the Legal Aid Agency updated us on the government’s appeal on the introduction of a residence test (which we covered here). It will be heard next week and judgment is expected before Christmas.

He also said that news on the 2013 contract (which covers family, housing and debt, and immigration/asylum) will be available in the next month; but it is likely that the contract will be extended.

Best tips were from Wendy Hewstone (Managing Partner at Access Law) who said taking credit cards was the best thing they have done recently to improve cash flow and David Gilmore (DG Legal) who did a survey of 38 firms out of hours and found only 2 had any kind of telephone answering service – an easy way of improving client access.

Lord Bach updated us on the Labour party’s review of legal aid and presented certificates to those present who had completed LAPG’s Certificate in Practice Management. The pilot course had funding from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills which enabled LAPG to create 60 hours of management training which is unique in being tailored to legal aid practice (whether in private practice or not for profit).

The course covers:

  • People management
  • Business and strategic planning
  • Financial maangement
  • Managing legal aid contracts
  • Compliance, risk management and data security
  • Marketing
  • And provides access to resources through the Chartered Management Institute

People said they used tools from the course straight away – creating dashboards for management information and business planning which helped with Lexcel assessment. Comments from the first cohort included: ‘I didn’t think I needed training before I did the CPM but looking back, I can see I did’, ‘Has given me more confidence’ . The time management module by Matthew Moore was particularly popular – and it’s a free download.

To express an interest in the course for early 2016 (likely cost £1500), email Carol Storer carol.storer@lapg.co.uk.

 

 

 

 

 

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by | June 22, 2015 · 9:48 am

LAA annual report 2014-15

The LAA’s recently published annual report shows how much less money has been spent on securing legal advice and representation for the poorest people in England and Wales. There was an overall net reduction in expenditure of £244 million (all figures in £000), a further decrease from 2013-14, which was the first year of the LASPO scope cuts.  The reasons for the increase in crime higher were given as higher numbers of sitting days and more pages of prosecution evidence in more complex cases.

Funding type                                                          2014-15               2013-14

Civil legal help                                                       112,165                 129,776

Civil representation                                             510,212                  693,527

Crime lower                                                           332,578                 367,304

Crime higher                                                          586,457                 553,677

Central funds                                                          44,238                    89,070

The costs of legal aid administration reduced by £3.1 million, when calculated on a cash basis; although total administration costs rose by £3.3 million, largely due to the development of the widely criticised CCMS system for civil applications and bill processing, which will now not become mandatory until February 2016.

Key milestones noted include:

  • Sustained monthly above target levels for processing civil applications (97% in 20 working days)
  • Quicker processing of civil bills (99% in 25 days)
  • Reject rates for civil bills brought down to 9.2% (against a 15% target)
  • Call waiting times for the civil certificated helpline below 2 minutes 48 seconds
  • Abandoned call rate for the civil certificated helpline 10.47% (target 12%)

In relation to internal issues, the LAA:

  • Launched a management skills programme for their staff
  • Increased participation in their staff survey to 89%
  • Had lower staff sickness than the civil service average (7.1 days against 7.6 days)

Plans for the future include:

  • Concluding the legal aid change programme
  • Making CCMS compulsory
  • Finalising the transfer of crime application processing from HMCTS
  • Developing crime online billing
  • Improving telephone answering and support for digital working by providers
  • Making the LAA a better place to work

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