Criminal Contracting – a request to the Lord Chancellor

In contemplation of the imminent announcement to abandon the Two Tier contracting process, the Big Firms’ Group calls on the Ministry of Justice to implement a further, short, “freeze” of the duty solicitor rotas pending swift consultation with regards the structure of duty solicitor scheme rules that should stand alongside the 2015 Own Client Contract, under which firms will operate from 1 April 2016.

The Big Firms’ Group invites Own Client Contract holders from across the country to come together to create a group that wishes to build a consensus regarding a duty solicitor scheme which bases allocation of duty slots on criteria which are either entirely objective and/or which are easily verifiable and enforceable by the Legal Aid Agency.  We hope that the Lord Chancellor will wish to engage with this group at the earliest opportunity.

The joint goal of the Ministry of Justice and Own Client Contract holders must be to build a system of allocation which promotes quality at the heart of criminal defence services and which is not open to manipulation to the detriment of achieving that quality goal.