As I had reason to point out last week one of the joys of ageing is that very little surprises you anymore.
This is certainly the case with LSC/LAA dalliance with online working. Who can forget the award winning, Great LSC Offline Billing Fiasco of 2007?
Their latest project, CCMS, appears close to making history repeat itself.
Our costs drafters echo those concerns.
The LAPG’s head, Carol Storer, made these very points to me in a private conversation a few weeks ago.
Legal Aid Practitioners Group director Carol Storer has spent more than two years working with the LAA trying to get improvements to the system. She says she will have no choice but to resign if it is not fixed. ‘I could not, in all conscience, stay in my post as director of the profession’s representative body, if the LAA goes ahead with CCMS in its current form.’
It is unlikely that this will result in the LAA pulling fingers from its not listening ears – not least because anything which results in fewer paid acts of legal aid is likely to be regarded as a result.
Carol is, of course, entirely blameless and you do not need be a genius to work out who is.
