We have had a lot of phone traffic this week about designated area standard fees especially in our heartlands of West Yorkshire. So thought we would share what we put together for one client.
There is no definitive guidance to which I can refer you and these fees were never created for the wasteland that the CJS has become. Our starting point here is therefore taken from Guidance on Reporting Crime Lower Work available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cwa-codes-guidance
These fees are discussed at S. 6.11 & 12 but the questions you ask are NOT covered. We think the only logical approach is to base the fee claimed on the Court identification code required in your monthly return. This is discussed in S. 4 of the above as follows:
The code must be for the Police Station, Court, or Prison where the first attendance took place.
On this basis we have created the following table:
Case Type Designated Area Firm Non-Designated Area Firm Case starts and concludes in a designated area court Designated Area Fee Designated Area Fee Case starts and concludes in a non-designated area court Designated Area Fee Non-Designated Area Fee Case starts in a designated area court but concludes in a non-designated area court Designated Area Fee Designated Area Fee Case starts in a non-designated area court but concludes in a designated area court Designated Area Fee Non-Designated Area Fee Travel and waiting are only claimable on Non-Designated Area fees
Rows 1 & 2 seem incontestable to us, 3 and 4, for Non-Designated Area Firms, less so. Furthermore we suspect that LAA Contract Managers may well take a varied and inconsistent approach.
