The 2017 Standard Crime Contract will now end on 31 March 2022. The LAA will run a procurement process next year for new crime contracts.
The contracts have been extended to take account of an independent review of the criminal legal aid system, due to begin later this year.
The LAA said, in a statement this week, that: ‘We are making this announcement following the publication of the Criminal Legal Aid Review (CLAR) consultation response on a series of accelerated measures.
‘That document also sets out the next steps for the wider review, including priority work focusing on a review of crime lower fee schemes, and we are therefore taking this approach to best align our contract activity with the forthcoming work of the CLAR.’
Simon Davis, president of the Law Society, described the decision to extend as ‘sensible’.
‘Beleaguered firms will be relieved not to have to cope with an imminent tender process on top of the great physical and financial strain they are already under, on call to police stations at all hours and with swathes of solicitors on furlough,’ he said.
‘However, a profession which was already perilously underfunded before the pandemic―with defence firms sinking at an alarming rate―has been plunged into even choppier waters by COVID-19. Many of them will not find working a further 12 months at 1990s rates an attractive proposition, even with the small increase heralded by last week’s announcement, and we would urge the government to reverse the previous 8.75% cut as an incentive to firms to take up this extension and hold out for the outcome of CLAR.’
As of 2 July, 1,146 firms held a criminal legal aid contract, 125 fewer than in 2019 and far fewer than the 1,861 firms in 2010.
Read the LAA announcement at: bit.ly/3aVSkZD.
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