Authors:LAG
Created:2014-09-01
Last updated:2023-09-18
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Duty contracts tender delayed
The formal tender process for police station and magistrates’ court duty contracts process has been delayed until October. At the end of July, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published draft contract terms and a draft specification, and a summary of changes in the draft contract compared with the 2010 contract. An e-notification from the Legal Aid Agency on the crime duty tender process said that the additional information was ‘to support bidders in preparation for new contracts’. It went on to reveal the tender process would begin in October ‘in order to give bidders sufficient opportunity to absorb this information’. According to the Law Society, which had requested a delay in the tender round, there are a number of issues that still need to be resolved.
Applications for tenders for own client work ended in May; however, many practitioners fear that they will lose out on tender duty work if these are introduced. In an interview with Legal Action, Bill Waddington, chairperson of the Criminal Law Solicitors’ Association (CLSA), said that the organisation had ‘very grave concerns’ about the proposed tenders and feared that if they go ahead ‘many, many firms will go to the wall’. Bill Waddington argued that the creation of a two-tier system of own client and police station contracts ‘does nothing for access to justice and nothing for improving quality’. He added that clients should be treated as people ‘not as commodities’.
A judicial review challenging the tendering process has been brought by the CLSA and the London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association. The Law Society will provide financial assistance for the proceedings. The case is listed for hearing in September.