The government should rethink its plans to revamp the legal aid housing duty scheme, says Steve Hynes
It seems price competition is an issue which just will not go away in the world of legal aid. A year after solicitors successfully fought off plans to introduce competitive tenders for police station and magistrates’ court duty work, the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) has announced a consultation on introducing price competitive tenders for Housing Possession Court Duty Schemes (HPCDS). The move has met with widespread condemnation from groups representing solicitors, including the Law Society and the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG).
Chris Minnoch (Operations Director at LAPG) says that the organisation, which mainly represents civil legal aid providers, has “serious concerns” about the proposed tenders. Minnoch believes that the LAA’s plan to reduce the number of contracts by two thirds through increasing the size of the geographic areas covered by the tenders would risk smaller providers losing out to large firms. While Minnoch believes the large firms would find the proposed contracts more attractive “as they can make economies of scale”, the risk is areas
