Gove abandons legal aid contract bidding process and suspends fee cut for solicitors

The justice secretary Michael Gove has abandoned a controversial new bidding scheme for legal aid contracts and suspended a further 8.75% fee cut for duty criminal solicitors who represent people suspected of crimes in police stations and magistrates courts.

The dual contract tendering process, which required firms to bid separately for the right for solicitors to be named on the duty solicitor rota for new police station referrals and also to represent existing clients, would have limited the number of firms able to do legal aid work. Along with the proposed cut to solicitors’ fees, the measures were designed to force many firms to merge or close, which would reduce legal aid provision across the country.

The move is the latest in a series of embarrassing U-turns for the Ministry of Justice, which has also abolished a mandatory courts charge of up to £1,200 for all convicted defendants – even those who are homeless – and lifted a ban on prisoners receiving books from their families. All the ill-conceived measures were introduced by the previous justice secretary, Chris Grayling, whose competence was repeatedly questioned while he was in the post.

The fee cut for solicitors remains on the table and has officially only been suspended for 12 months from 1 April, when it was meant to come into effect. Meanwhile the bidding process has completely been abandoned – partly because of, as the Law Society Gazette reports, the hundreds of legal challenges being brought by firms.

Gove said: “My decision is driven in part by the recognition that the litigation will be time consuming and costly for all parties, whatever the outcome. I do not want my department and the legal aid market to face months if not years of continuing uncertainty, and expensive litigation, while it is heard.”

Jonathan Smithers, president of the Law Society, said: “It is clear that a competitive approach to the provision of criminal legal aid services is not appropriate. The assurance that there will be no competitive tendering in the future gives practitioners greater certainty for the future.”