John M Hayes are always thorough and meticulous in the preparation of bills but more importantly than that they are very approachable and willing to help. Dealing with them is a pleasure.
Brendan McNeany, Partner, Samuel Phillips
The LAA’s Civil Certificated Billing Improvement Group has created an electronic handbook that is designed to provide guidance to their caseworkers. The handbook has been made available on their website so that providers can also access it. Their intention is for the handbook to be used electronically and it will be updated on a regular basis. It can be accessed on the following page of their website:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/legal-aid/newslatest-updates/civil-news/?a=36404
There is a lot of useful information in there and although much of it is repeating previous guidance there are some interesting points that are worth highlighting:
Show Cause Process under LASPO
A show cause places an embargo on a legal aid certificate that prevents further work being undertaken. The show cause procedure is set out in the funding code for cases started prior to 1st April 2013, however the funding code no longer applies under LASPO and the equivalent of a show cause is the notification of an intention to withdraw a determination. Regulation 42 of the Civil Legal Aid (Procedures) Regulations 2012 sets out the procedure and confirms that if the determination is withdrawn as a result of this procedure the withdrawal takes effect from the initial notification of intention.
Under the show cause procedure the LAA would not pay for any work after the issue of the show cause until it had been lifted. They have confirmed in their Civil Finance Electronic Handbook that the position is different for LASPO cases as a result of Regulation 42. If a notification of an intention to withdraw a determination is issued and the procedure results in the certificate not being withdrawn then work done in the intervening period can be claimed. Unfortunately there will still be a risk to conducting the work as you will not know at that stage whether the funding will end up being withdrawn or not.
Rejections
Over the past few months the LAA have been using checklists when assessing claims for costs. If you have had any claims rejected you will have seen a copy come back with the file showing which item on the checklist has caused the rejection. The current guidance being provided to caseworkers is that once they have found a reason for rejection they must spend no more than another five minutes working through the checklist and must stop straightaway if they get to three reasons for rejection. It is therefore important to note how far through the checklist the caseworker has got on any rejected files and double check yourself that there are no potential problems with the items that they have not yet looked at.
Preparation for Hearings
Under the Family Advocacy Scheme preparation for a hearing is covered by the FAS fee and can’t be claimed separately. There had been very little guidance in respect of how far the definition of preparation for hearing would ultimately be stretched. The handbook however does confirm that they consider preparation of position statements and preparation of court attendance notes to be part of the FAS fee.
As a whole this new document provides a useful insight into the guidance being provided to caseworkers and is worthwhile having at hand to supplement the guidance given in the Costs Assessment Guidance and the Contract Specification.
Tuesday 27th August 2013