A cohort of legal professional groups have hit out at the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) over flaws in its processing system that are causing “serious” delays in payment.
The Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) accused the LAA of being in “institutional denial” about the problem this week, and the Law Society, Resolution, Legal Aid Practitioners Group, Mental Health Lawyers Association and the Legal Action Group have also spoken out.
The problem is the LAA’s new Client and Cost Management System (CCMS), which brings its administration online and is due to become mandatory from 1 October. According to a report published this week by the ACL, the new system “deteriorates existing business processes” with poorly implemented functionality, while some required functionality has been “missed completely”.
The report details how it can take months for the LAA to fix bugs, and accuses the LAA of “a lack of understanding about the basics of billing, like the difference between an estimate and an actual. This often ignores case law, court procedure rules and even requirements in the LAA’s own contract with providers.”
Paul Seddon, chair of the ACL’s Legal Aid Group, says: “The unresolved issues we have seen indicate that efficiency will decrease, not only for the LAA but very seriously so for providers.”
Law Society President Andrew Caplen says: “If the problems have been correctly identified, it is difficult to see how the system could currently be considered fit to become mandatory.”
A Resolution spokesperson warns the CCMS is “not fit for purpose” and would “cause serious problems for practitioners… in its present condition”, and Carol Storer, director of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, says: “It is two and a half years since the system was launched and practitioners continue reporting to us so many problems with CCMS that we have to question the ability of the LAA to deliver an effective system. It is difficult enough to carry out legal aid work without fighting an IT system that is clunky, frustrating, and in some respects is simply unworkable.”
An LAA spokesperson said: “We are introducing the CCMS because it will deliver an improved service to providers than the existing paper-based system. We deliberately introduced a long lead-in before the system becomes mandatory to give firms time to prepare and train staff. More than 1,000 providers are already using CCMS and the LAA has received more than 33,000 applications to date. Approximately half of all new applications now come in via CCMS and this figure is increasingly weekly. We have worked closely with providers and have enhanced the system following feedback. A number of further key changes will be made in advance of October.”
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