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Legal Aid

I went to the Mental Health Lawyers Association annual general meeting and had conversations there about the issue. We agreed to look again at the nature of the proposed mental health fees, and that process is in place. There will be proposals in due course, which will apply to suppliers across the board, whether large or small. The ““Way Ahead”” fees, which are based on the average costs for the various cases handled by solicitors and not-for-profit providers, are reasonably well placed. Analysis shows that about 62 per cent. of providers across the board would have been paid more for their last year’s case loads under the new fixed fee scheme than they would under the old scheme. The point of changing to fixed fees is to motivate efficiencies; indeed, productivity has gone up exponentially, and I must express my great respect for the sector for achieving that. We therefore have every hope that, long before the new fees come in—they have, of course, been put back to October to facilitate the process—many more suppliers will comfortably be doing their work for less than the fixed fees or the same sort of price.