Steve Hynes takes time out to explain the complexities of the tendering process for legal advice telephone services
It appears that the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is having problems finding enough firms willing to take on civil legal aid work. It has been forced to re-advertise a number of tenders recently, including the telephone service in discrimination law. There is a suspicion that it is trying to fix the process for this as it is not prepared to pay the market price for it.
Ring the changes
As part of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) changes, the government introduced a telephone service for some areas of law. Members of the public wanting advice on debt, discrimination, and education cases under the legal aid scheme have to use the service. It is a bureaucratic process, as getting help requires people to first contact an operator who carries out a means, merits and scope test to determine if they qualify for legal aid. If they do, they are then referred onto a Civil Legal Advice (CLA) contract holder. The
