Report of the Remuneration Committee

Peter Collier QC
23 Mar 2000

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REMUNERATION COMMITTEE
Report to Grand Court - 23.3.2000

Criminal matters - an update

Discrepancy between Prosecution and Defence Fees. The Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General have announced that they intend to bring this discrepancy to an end with the introduction of a common graduated fee scheme in April 2001. They have indicated that the fees are likely to be between the present levels (ie pros fees go up and defence fees may go down). The Bar Council is currently engaged in an information gathering exercise, in which several chambers on circuit are participating, in order to argue for the raising or at least the retention of present defence levels. The CPS have stated that they intend to raise their standard and lower pre marked fees in April this year. The LCD has also announced an intention to extend the present graduated fee scheme to cover all cases up to 25 days in length.

High Cost Criminal Cases. The Criminal Defence Service (Legal Aid Board under new name) has issued a draft document in relation to HCCC. (25 days+ and one defence teams costs = £100k+). These cases will have to be notified to the Legal Service Commission . Frauds will form a special sub set of cases where the solicitor will have to be on an approved panel. If the case falls within the relevant criteria then an individual case contract will have to be entered into which will be similar to a CPS Case Management Plan with agreed hours and rates. This it is said will all be in place from October 2000. The proposed hourly rates have not been published, but are believed to be very low!

Regulation 48 - 2 Counsel. We await regulations (we do not expect any further draft for consultation) to govern the basis upon which and means by which certificates for 2 counsel will be granted.

Appeals to Court of Appeal - please read the article in this months Bar News about fees for the Court of Appeal Criminal Division and the guidance therein. Note what is said about the usual range of fees. If you are taxed down and do not appeal, beware! The Registrar is concerned about the number of people who have claimed very high amounts, been taxed down and never even asked for a review.

Family matters - an update

Graduated Fees Scheme. The LCD has now published the graduated fee scheme that will be introduced for payments in cases conducted under legal aid certificates issued after 2nd October 2000. As yet there are no ?figures in the boxes?, these are still the subject of negotiation. The basis of payment will be that there will be 4 categories of case - A. applications for injunctions under Part IV FLA 1996 & the Protection from Harrassment Act 1997, B. Public Law Children; C. Private Law Children; D. All other family work. Each case will then be broken down into five functions (F1 - pre litigation work eg advice, drafting and supplementary conferences; F2 - applications for injunctions, declarations and enforcement; F3 - preliminary, interim and review hearings; F4 - final hearing; F5 - main conference - only one per case). There will be special issue payments (SIPS) and complexity payments (COPS) to increase the basic fees payable for each function. That is the basic pattern, there are of course many other details.

There is no guarantee (and presumably therefore no attempt) to make the new scheme costs neutral when compared to the present scheme.

The scheme will apply to all cases up to 10 days in length. The scheme only applies to barristers; solicitor advocates will continue to be paid as now!

Civil Matters

The LC proposes to implement the costs provisions in the Access to Justice Act in April 2000. We await a new Costs Practice Direction.

Multi Party Actions and High Costs Cases - consultation continues. It seems that the controversial issues are in relation to funding investigative work pre merits assessment; the actual rates to be paid - whether these should be on some sort of calibrated scale or not and at what rate(s); whether a success fee might be payable on the part of the fee that is at risk.

Conditional Fee Agreements - new draft statutory regulations were published this week.

Generally

The Ombudsman has reported on a complaint where counsel had not supported a lay client, by providing information to justify the agreed brief fee, when the lay client appealed the costs allowed on provisional taxation. This is likely to lead to a change in the professional conduct rules to the effect that such support should be given. This is all related to the increasing requirement to keep contemporaneous records of time spent working on cases in all fields.

Taxation and Retirement Benefits Handbook - new edition imminent

Peter Collier QC
23.3.00