Face-to-face contracts for family law and civil categories

The LSC has opened a tender process for new contracts in:

• Family

• Asylum (including residual non-asylum work)

• Housing and Debt

• Additional Housing Possession Court Duty Schemes

You need to submit a PQQ (Pre-Qualification Questionnaire) between 21 May 2012 and noon on 18 June 2012 via the online portal.

The information for applicants can be downloaded from here.

If you have any queries, you should submit a question, using the Bravo Solution online message board, by 12 noon on 6 June 2012.

You will subsequently need to respond to the ITT (Invitation to Tender) stage. The LSC has not provided firm dates yet for this. However, if you have not submitted a PQQ by the deadline, you will not be eligible to bid.

Tender timetable – face to face contracts

Contracts available

The final draft of the Standard Terms for the new contract are on the LSC’s website; but the detailed specification is not expected to be available until later in the summer.

When the ITT is open, you will bid for New Matter Starts (Legal Help).

The procurement areas will be the same as in the last tender exercise.

If you have a contract you will also be able to carry out licensed work in that category of law. Licensed work will be granted on a case by case basis in the usual way. All categories of law will become ‘exclusive’, which will mean that (except for any work falling within the ‘miscellaneous’ category), there will no longer be any tolerance work.

There will no longer be Family and Housing contracts. If you want to do Housing, you will need to bid for a Housing and Debt contract.

Face-to-face contracts in Family, Asylum (including residual Immigration work), Housing and Debt are not competitive. In these categories, all applicants meeting minimum requirements will be offered a contract. However, it is likely that there will be an element of competition for higher volumes of work as in the 2011 tender process.

The HPCDS tender will be competitive, using award criteria.

Quality standards

You will need to hold the SQM (or Lexcel), as assessed by the SQM Delivery Partnership by 1 April 2013. If you are intending to set up a new firm from 1 April 2013, you will need to pass a ‘desktop audit’ by that date.

You will also need to employ a qualified supervisor in the relevant category of law. A Family Supervisor can be:

• A member of the Law Society’s Family Law Accreditation Scheme;

• A member of the Law Society’s Children Panel Accreditation Scheme;

• A Resolution Accredited Specialist;

• Accredited at Stage 1 of the Resolution process.

The LSC has clarified that they will NOT require you to have a member of the Children Law Panel in order to do public children law work. Supervisor declaration forms can be found here.

There is an additional question in relation to experience of a case involving potential human rights issues, to reflect forthcoming changes in the scope of legal aid.

If you would like to apply for the next round of Resolution specialist accreditation, you need to notify central office by 30 July at the latest.

• Print article
• Back to top

Face-to-face contracts for mediation

The information for applicants is in the same document as for the main Family and Civil face-to-face contracts. It can be downloaded from here.

You need to submit a PQQ (Pre-Qualification Questionnaire) via the online portal.

There will be two opportunities to submit an ITT bid for additional mediation contracts; but the PQQ must be submitted by 18 June.

Also note that if you need to apply for the Mediation Quality Mark, you will also have to pass a desk top audit (see timetable below for more information).

There is more information about the Family Mediation tender here.

Tender timetable – mediation contracts

First round of bids

Second round of bids

• Print article
• Back to top

Specialist telephone contracts for Family law and civil categories

The CLA telephone advice contracts will cover advice (and in some categories representation, see below), in the following categories of law:

• Housing and Debt

• Discrimination

• Education (Special Educational Needs)

• Family

The tender exercises for specialist telephone advice will be undertaken in a two stage competitive process and there will be a different PQQ for telephone contracts to reflect the size of these contracts and the competitive element. This will close at noon on 19 June 2012.

Tender timetable – CLA telephone contracts

It is likely that the LSC will use commercial credit checks and require additional financial disclosure where concerns are raised. Only shortlisted organisations will be invited to participate in the subsequent ITTs which will use award criteria and price competition to decide which applicants are awarded a contract.

It is likely that the LSC will only award three equal-sized telephone contracts in Family and five equal-sized contracts in Housing and Debt. There will be no geographical restrictions on these contracts. For Family and Housing and Debt applicants will bid on the basis of hourly rates for this Legal Help work. Licensed Work will continue to be undertaken through face-to-face contracts. In these categories, you will need to bid separately for face-to-face contracts, if you also wanted to deliver services in that way.

As the anticipated volume of work in Discrimination and Special Educational Needs is relatively small, contracts will be awarded on the basis of a combined telephone and face-to-face service. Applicants will bid on the basis of hourly rates covering face to face and telephone advice for Legal Help work only. Licensed Work will continue to be payable in line with face-to-face contracts.

• Print article
• Back to top

Where you can find relevant information on the LSC website

There is an outline paper, providing an overview of the LSC’s approach to Family, Civil and Crime contracts over the next few years (‘Headline approach to tenders February 2012’) that can be downloaded from here.

The LSC has provided some tips, based on experience from past tenders which will help you submit a successful application ‘Key considerations when tendering’. This can be downloaded from here.

They have also published some ‘Frequently Asked Questions’. This document provides some information on how LASPO may affect contracts next year.

There is guidance on the category definitions to be used from April 2013 which can be accessed here.

There is more information about the Family Mediation tender available online here.

• Print article
• Back to top

Hints for completing PQQs

The PQQ’s purpose is to enable the LSC to assess whether an applicant meets their minimum standards of suitability for a publicly funded legal aid contract and to gather certain other information about the applicant.

The first version of the PQQ Information for Applicants was published on 21 May, swiftly replaced by a corrected version on 24 May. Some paragraph references within the PQQ IFA on pages 23 and 24 were corrected and Wakefield was added to the list of Housing Possession Court Duty Schemes on page 27.

Answers to the PQQ questions will be assessed on a pass/fail basis. If an applicant fails any question, the LSC will reject their application. Some questions provide an opportunity to set out exceptional circumstances. Where exceptional circumstances are given in a PQQ response, the LSC will undertake an assessment of these to establish whether they would be willing to contract with the applicant. The LSC’s approach to assessment of answers is set out in the Information for Applicants pp.16-25.

PQQ 47 for face to face contracts covers the following areas in respect of key personnel:

· Whether there any mandatory grounds for rejecting the applicant due to e.g. convictions for conspiracy, corruption, bribery, fraud, money laundering, or similar offences;

· requirement to have one year’s managerial experience and three years’ experience of delivering specialist legal advice in the past five years;

· Whether there are any discretionary grounds for rejecting the applicant including:

· bankruptcy/insolvency issues;

· confirmation that the applicant has met its tax, VAT and NI liabilities;

· confirmation that there will be no outstanding CCJs by the contract start date

· confirmation that no LSC civil contract has been terminated due to the fault of the applicant;

· no restrictions applied by a regulatory/complaints body in the last three years;

· no current investigations;

· no findings of unlawful discrimination.

A full version of the PQQ can be found on the Bravo Solution tendering portal through the ‘PQQs open to all suppliers’ link.

• Print article
• Back to top

Training

Resolution will be providing training on the new contract and submitting the ITT in the autumn. We will inform you of dates and locations as soon as we can. If there is anything you would particularly like the training to cover, please contact; Euan MacKinnon

• Print article
• Back to top

Changing practices for changing times conference – book your place now!

Resolution is holding a one day conference in London on 21 June, which sets out the challenges and the opportunities facing family solicitors today.

The conference will be chaired by Elspeth Thompson, Resolution National Committee member and will feature a wide range of speakers who will share what they are planning and how it might affect your business. The day will close with a panel discussion and opportunity for you to pose your questions and share your thoughts.

If you want to understand how your firm can increase its profitability and ensure its future viability, this is the event that will provide you with the tools and information you need.

The event costs just £99 (plus VAT) for Resolution members and carries 6 CPD points. Non Resolution members are also welcome to attend.

You can book you place here.

• Print article
• Back to top

Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards

Resolution is delighted to announce that three of our members have been shortlisted for the prestigious Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year Awards, which are now in their tenth year.

A judging panel chaired by Michael Mansfield QC has selected 28 finalists across nine different categories. In the Family legal aid lawyer category the three finalists, all of whom are Resolution members are: Rachel Horman from Watson Ramsbottom in Blackburn, Razia Jogi from Switalskis in Bradford and Lindsay Taylor from Watkins Gunn in Pontypool.

The 11 LALY judges selected the finalists after reading over 1,000 pages of nominations. Entries were supported by testimonials from clients, medical and other experts, judges and campaigners. There will also be making an award for Outstanding Achievement.

The LALYs, which were launched in 2003, are the only awards aimed solely at those doing legal aid work. They are organised by the Legal Aid Practitioners Group on a not-for-profit basis.

The winners will be announced and presented with their awards by Michael Mansfield at a ceremony in central London on 12 June. Resolution would like to congratulate Rachel, Razia and Lindsay for their nominations and wish them every success. Resolution would also like to offer our congratulations to all those Legal Aid professionals nominated for this year’s awards. These awards help to highlight the hard work being undertaken nationally, in what are particularly challenging and uncertain times.

For more information about the awards please go to: http://www.lapg.co.uk/

• Print article
• Back to top

Important LSC tender information

We wanted to let members know that it has not been possible for Resolution to participate in the discussions around the tender process with the Legal Services Commission on this occasion. In order to maintain impartiality and ensure they were not offering a competitive advantage, the LSC placed restrictions on any economic providers being involved in discussions – or for the detail of these discussions to be disclosed to them - in the lead up to the current tender round. If they were involved they would be prohibited from bidding in this round.

The purpose of our engagement in dialogue like this is to ensure that members’ views are accurately represented to the LSC. In the absence of members being able to attend, or for that matter, our staff team being able to fully discuss or consult with members on this process, sadly this meant we had to withdraw from discussions after the first of three meetings.

Our discussions around the tender process have been carried out in a positive spirit, and both parties are now committed to working closely together in order to overcome difficulties like this in the future.

• Print article
• Back to top