Here We Go Again

As I head to what I hope will genuinely be my penultimate Cost Committee hearing we receive the first outcome of an appeal sent to an “Independent Funding Review Adjudicator”. The result is an alarming one for those who questioned this change in procedure and the loss of the right to a hearing.
The first main concern is that the file has come back “de novo” reduced below that originally allowed on assessment. This process has of course been a key tactic used by the London RO in Immigration CCA appeals and one subject to much previous argument. We will once again attempt a point of principle this time backed up by the fact there is now a supportive case determined in the Supreme Courts Costs Office.
Secondly, and right to the heart of the changes, these new findings, made by the IFRA represent fresh points to which the firm have no right of appeal. In these circumstances they do not even have the chance to raise immediate objections during the course of the hearing. It also seems to me entirely outwith the requirements of CRIMLA 28.