The Defence Brief

Capita, they of the multimillion pound failed/delayed IT project (think NHS, HMRC) as well as botched staff administration services at Leicester Hospitals NHS Trust and the BBC where staff details were lost.  They also failed to provide sufficient computing systems for the Criminal Records Bureau, which caused lengthy delays.  Capita were also involved in the failure of the Individual Learning Accounts following a £60M over-spend.  These collective failings led Private Eye to rename the company Crapita. Imagine how over-joyed I was when I discovered that the Defence Solicitor Call Centre is now indirectly owned and managed by Crapita. On the 1st July 2011, Crapita purchased Ventura who have held the contract with the Legal Services Commission to provide advice to detainees in the police station and to allocate cases to solicitors since the 1st April 2010. Let's see if Capita can make less of a pigs-ear of this than they seem to have made of many of their other proje...

The new Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill has been published. Clause 12 allows for suspects in police custody to be represented.  This is good as the right to free legal advice has been with us for a long time now.  A lack of legal advice has also led to convictions being overturned by the appeal courts for various reasons that would not have occurred had a solicitor been present. However, clause 12 appears to be slightly different to the current position, which allows for representation to be provided quickly for most detainees.  Clause 12(6) is concerned with regulations that a civil servant (probably the head of the Legal Services Commission) will be able to make regarding the hoops that must be jumped through before you can receive advice from your police cell.  It reads: Regulations under subsection (5) may, in particular, include——       ....       (b) provision permitting or requirin...

I would just like to take a moment to welcome My Learned Friends at the Bar of England and Wales to the officious world of the Legal Services Commission - a true bureaucracy that has no purpose other than to create more red tape and expense. Quite recently, the LSC took over the handling of the Advocates Graduated Fee Scheme (basically how the Bar gets paid for Crown Court work).  Previously, such things were handled by a single or sometimes small team clerks at the Court where the work was conducted and payment would be authorised and made within a short time-scale of a few weeks in most cases.  From my own experience, the court staff were usually efficient, friendly and made few mistakes - if they adjusted a bill they were right 9 times out of 10.  My own experience of the LSC (who have been handling all types of solicitors claims for years) is that they are almost never efficient, staff may or may not be friendly and they make a huge number of mistakes - for example,...