Sir Geoffrey Vos, the Master of the Rolls, announced last week at the Civil Justice Council’s National Forum that he is accepting all the recommendations of the Civil Justice Council’s costs review in May. This means the GHR, which are used by judges to assess the costs of a solicitor, and which were last raised in 2021, will be uplifted for inflation from January.
David Bailey-Vella, vice-chair of the Association of Costs Lawyers, said the uplift would be ‘a great relief to the profession’ while the review of the costs provisions was ‘long overdue and will hopefully result in a far more efficient process for resolving costs disputes’.
Also speaking at the Forum, the Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk confirmed that fixed recoverable costs will be uprated for inflation next April. Chalk said he would consider giving the annual task of uprating costs to an independent party, judge or body outside of government in future as a way of keeping things ‘stable, predictable and proportionate’.
Sam Townend KC, vice chair of the Bar, said: ‘It is essential for access to justice that fixed recoverable costs thresholds keep up with rate of inflation, to allow for the work covered by the regime to be viable for both solicitors and barristers.
‘I am pleased that the Lord Chancellor also agreed to look at the question of independently set annual uprating of these costs recovery caps. The current system which splits the setting of the rates by the Ministry of Justice from the implementation by the Civil Procedure Rules Committee is cumbersome and lacks transparency, predictability and consistency and is bad for consumer claimants, defendants, and the legal professions.’
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