Can Lord Justice Jackson fix fast track costs? asks Andrew Parker
There are many issues tackled in Lord Justice Jackson’s Preliminary Report on Civil Costs, but one target area in particular is crying out for reform: fixed costs in fast track cases. As he records in Chapter 22, this was one of Lord Woolf’s original proposals in his Final Report in 2006, appropriately entitled Access to Justice.
Sir Rupert goes on to say that, although limited elements of fast track costs have been fixed (see CPR Pts 45 and 46), he and his panel of assessors unanimously agree “that we should take forward this work and try to achieve a fixed costs system in fast track cases”.
He then sets out the work of his sub-committee in creating an up to date matrix for all fast track cases.
It is worth noting that the debate has moved on from whether we should have fixed costs in all stages of fast track cases, if indeed that point was ever seriously in debate.
