Focus 48 arrived last week and can also be found here. Much of interest especially on Preferred Suppliers.
This week however we are interesting in translating the LSC?s ?Corporate Targets? as discussed at page four of this issue.
This post involves the intention to reduce Police Station costs by 5% by “focussing on solicitors offices where costs are particularly high”. This relates to the article ?Not so SOOPER? in the archive here.
So what does this focus involve once you have been identified as “particularly high costs”?
It begins with a ?chat? with your Account Manager. Oh and s/he will also bring along a senior caseworker to simultaneously audit 20 PACE claims. This chat involves having a series of predetermined questions put to you. This can take some time and focuses on what they believe to be areas of potential ?over-claiming?.
Many of the answers sought might be easily answerable had they been supplied in advance however testing the immediacy of your claims knowledge seems to form an important part of the assessment.
The issues under scrutiny are the same Contract Compliance chestnuts, attendance v waiting time, bail back attendance, travel, SBT etc.
The outcome in this instance was an indication that the meeting and mini audit had not assuaged the LSC?s fears and that a full CCA audit of PACE claims will be scheduled later in the year (when file sampling software had been ?tweaked?). And all this despite the fact that the firm has a demonstrable declining average cost per case and is Category 1!!
This is another entirely new audit approach – we have been warned.
