Tag Archive for 'Legal Aid'

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Of contracts, shifting goalposts and lawfulness

By NL on 25/08/2010. 8 Comments

[Edit 01/09/2010. There has been a further change to the FAQ discussed in this post. See the new post here]

Bear with me. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

The LSC’s terms of tender for civil contracts stated

Paragraph 15.11: “For a tender to be complete, the Applicant Organisation must, prior to the deadline, submit a tender consisting of (1) a response to the PQQ and (2) a response to an ITT (including the Mandatory Form).”
Paragraph 15.13: “The Applicant Organisation must not amend or alter any document comprising part of the tender after the deadline”
Paragraph 15.37: “The Applicant Organisation agrees to keep any tender valid … Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Various (non-housing). Tags: , , .

Contracts and appeals: An Unclarification from the LSC

By NL on 13/08/2010. 2 Comments

The LSC, aware that there is a lot of interest in the appeals process for the contract award decisions (mainly, of course, because there are a lot of organisations appealing), has become concerned about “some inaccurate and confusing press reports”.

The LSC has therefore made a statement to unclarify the situation, dated 12 August.

The statement follows in part – with interpolations in square brackets by me.

“A lot of providers have been contacting us about the family legal aid tender, following some inaccurate and confusing press reports.”

[But given the content that follows, it must also apply to the SWL tender.]

“We are aware of concerns over allocations … Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Sunday Misc.

By NL on 08/08/2010. 0 Comments

Some bits and pieces from the weekend…

New websites 1
The OPSI and Statute Law Database sites have been combined into one new site for statute: www.legislation.gov.uk. However, the databases are the same and the current estimate is that about 50% of the statute is up to date, in the sense of containing all subsequent amendments. While statutes that have subsequent unincorporated amendments are marked as such, as per the SLD, this remains unsatisfactory for anyone who needs current statute – which is anyone in practice – as noted in the whole Timothy Leigh/iLegal kerfuffle. We don’t link to the SLD and now legislation.gov.uk versions of the key … Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Uncategorized. Tags: , , , .

No comment required

By NL on 29/07/2010. 2 Comments

the legal aid massacre - thanks to John Bolch
With thanks to John Bolch at Family Lore.… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , , .

Social Welfare Law contracts – update

By NL on 28/07/2010. 5 Comments

The LAG news blog is reporting that while Family contracts resulted in ‘carnage’ with an estimated 1300 out of 2400 firms being awarded contracts – about 54%, in Social Welfare Law the LSC is saying that it believes ‘around 70%’ of existing providers will be awarded contracts, but they are still doing ‘due diligence’ in 5 areas.

So if 46% failure is ‘carnage’, what is 30%? Two thirds of a carnage? Perhaps carnage lite? A triple decimation?

Certainly the 70% figure is not standard across the country. For example, my understanding is that there are only three SWL providers in Birmingham who were offered contracts (taking consortia as one, which … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Legal Aid contract round – In the thick of it

By NL on 23/07/2010. 9 Comments

The results of the Social Welfare Law and combined Housing/Family contract bids are slowly coming through. I am mindful that as I write this, firms/organisations in specific areas have not yet been informed whether they have a contract and if so for how many matter starts. But I have heard enough from various areas of the country and boroughs of London that suggest thats the results are going to have a dramatic impact on the shape of housing law provision. I’m sorry if this increases the already sky high anxiety of those still waiting – over two weeks after they were supposed to be informed.

I don’t propose to go … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , , , .

Pulling the Rugg out from under them

By NL on 10/06/2010. 2 Comments

Housing Minister Grant Shapps has now confirmed that not only the National Landlord Register is finished as a proposal. Also dead in the water are regulation of letting and managing agents, and compulsory written tenancy agreements.

Councils are ‘urged to use the wide range of powers that they already have at their disposal’ to deal with bad landlords. Quite who is to deal with dodgy letting and managing agents is not clear.

No further regulation of the private rental sector is to be expected.

In other news, cuts of £360 million to Criminal legal aid are confirmed. Civil legal aid shivers at the footstep on the stair…… Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Regulation and planning. Tags: , , , .
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