LIP SERVICE 

Andy Bean writes: It is not often we at JRS get to sing our own praises, due to Mr Pottinger

Top 8 

I am asked by one of the few remaining Northern Immigration practices to advise upon the key CCA fail factors. Whilst some of this is quite specific there are some general messages especially to civil suppliers. It is also worth remembering that the new “file assessment” process proposed as part of the Preferred Supplier Scheme […]

More Mental (Health) News 

News reaches us that the MHLA (Mental Health Lawyers Association) is not taking this lying down. Not being involved in this nor having been at the meeting I don’t know what if any of the proposed action is to be made public and so I won’t. We can however put any readers interested or affected […]

Once more unto the breach.. 

Another issue which looks set to run and run is this one. A client reports having been to a “CCA road-show” run by the new Mental Health units. They propose, identically to the very many immigration audits we all have witnessed, retrospectively to apply a significantly more draconian interpretation of contract and cost assessment guidance […]

The Man from the LSC he say YES 

For the first time in ages we can report a successful franchise application and award, at a branch office. Its not that we are getting failures rather that these are now so few and far between and even the prospect of a new branch office in the current climate is hardly enticing. (Its worth remembering […]

Almost Constructive 

I say almost because it is inevitably frustrating when you have to use the best part of a day proving the obvious. Constructive – they, the LSC, have gone away with no concerns about the firm’s control of PACE costs and probably with an enhanced view of its management systems. We slaved over a hot […]

League Against Cruel Sports 

Just been assisting clients prepare for a High Cost PACE audit tomorrow. We’ve got some strong arguments not least a trend line on a graph showing the firm reducing the average over the last 18 months. There are loads of other things the stats say too. All this is possible because they use our CDS […]

Back to Life…. 

By way of a bit of light relief from Peer Review back to high cost PACE claiming. We heard yesterday of a firm who were told, following an onsite assessment of about half a dozen files, that they would be in Category 2 or 3 were they to receive a CCA. Apparently some files were […]

A Bit of Good News 

Immediately below we asked about sample representativeness in PACE only CCAs. We now have an answer. There is no sampling tool and our understanding is that the first two 1C claims from each months CDS 6 returns will be selected. There will, therefore, be no statistical guarantee of representativeness. The up side of this? The […]

Back to the Hat 

We have spoken to the first “top 10%” club member to receive a request for 20 files for a PACE only CCA. My first thought remains, on what basis are these selected and how does this guarantee a representative sample? Perhaps we should ask.