“Firms continue to be asked to do more and more for less and less Funding. With increasing cuts in the budget we have concerns about the impact on quality and on the financial viability of those delivering criminal legal services. This seems to be a further cost cutting exercise in areas over which defence lawyers have no control. Suggesting over-use of the Duty Solicitor Scheme may seem disingenuous when usage is determined by the police arrest rate.”
So says LAPG Chair Roy Morgan in response to this from the MoJ.
It is the announcement I anticipated last week and involves the reduction of PACE standard fees (roughly by 11% in above average cost areas), fees relating to work on Committal bundles and payments to experts. So no to BVT (with all the costs of lining this project up) and a return to the “administrative setting of rates”.