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Criminal Defence Service (Very High Cost Cases) Regulations 2007

My first task is to declare an interest. I understand from my clerk that my name has been put forward for five or six defence teams which are bidding for contracts under this new system and it looks as though I will be on the panel at some stage, perhaps by January when decisions will be made. There has been a huge increase in the length of trials over my professional experience. In the old Stafford Crown Court there was a plaque above the jury box that commemorated the longest trial that had then taken place, which lasted 18 days. These days the prosecutor has barely cleared his throat at the end of 18 days. Some years ago, when the very high cost cases were first introduced, I was involved in one or two—I am a little out of touch because I have been doing lengthy courts martial, which come under a different system—but they were hopelessly bureaucratic and useless. Contract managers had absolutely no experience of what went on in court, yet they were designated as approvers of whatever proposals were put to them by counsel and litigators, as they appear to be called these days, about the length of time a case would take. They had no way of judging that. I hope that by now they have a great deal of experience under their belts and are better at it. There were problems. After spending days preparing a case, any deviation required their approval and, if necessary, the adjournment of the court. In a big case, courts cost anything between £10,000 and £15,000 a day. We had a ludicrous situation whereby a judge would be asked to adjourn so that counsel could pick up the phone to such an individual to ask whether he would be paid for reading the papers that the prosecution had served on him that morning. The last case I did was a court martial and I do not think a day went by without fresh papers being served on us. It is an ongoing problem. That need for everything to be approved is absolutely counterproductive. Nevertheless, the problem has to be tackled. The advent of the Rank Xerox machine lengthened trials to an enormous degree because of the production of exhibits, extra statements and so on. We do not require such close control by someone who is not in court and who does not know what is going on, but we need rewards for doing things efficiently and quickly. It is possible to string out a case if one has nothing else to do and one wants to earn money that way, but that is contrary to the public interest. The parts of the Explanatory Memorandum and the attached regulatory impact assessment on which I have fastened are paragraphs 4.3.6 and 4.3.7. I agree that there is an opportunity to secure better value by creating a specialist panel by means of competition on price and capacity. I pause there to say that the danger is that one can create a cartel; so unless it is easy to join the panel—or at least not too difficult to join it—those on the panel will draw up the drawbridge and charge whatever they think is appropriate. If they are in competition only within a specialist panel themselves, the danger is that fees will rise. The second matter, at paragraph 4.3.7, is that: "““The Government also intends to require the LSC to start work with specialist practitioners to identify ways to incentivise and reward Defence Teams for representing their clients in more efficient ways. This will be more likely to be successful if the LSC is working with a specialist panel of firms for whom VHCC Work represents a long-term investment. At present, firms have insufficient incentive to invest in technology, training and high quality recruitment””." I could not agree more that the Government should set about finding out what the appropriate incentives and rewards are for getting counsel and solicitors to do their jobs more efficiently and to be rewarded for being capable of getting to the point of a case, without drawing it out—as happened in the Jubilee Line case, for example—to the point where everyone loses heart and the case is dropped. I cannot come forward with any particular proposition at this time but it has always irritated me that some people spend days reading unnecessary papers and exhibits and get paid for it, whereas those of us who are a little more efficient and get to the point more quickly are paid the same, or sometimes less, than the inefficient practitioner. Obviously, if there is to be a panel, it is necessary to bring these regulations into effect but, if the case starts with one solicitor who is not a member of the panel, it has to be transferred. That is just a minor part of the overall picture and there can be no possible opposition to it. I urge the Minister and those behind him to have in the forefront of their minds not bureaucratic control over how advocates and litigators do their job but incentives and rewards for those who act efficiently and get through cases by getting to the nub of them. In the old days—unfortunately, I suppose that I am entitled to talk about the old days—the assessment of fees was left very much to the court clerk or the clerk of quarter sessions or whoever. That person was in court and knew precisely the value of a particular advocate whereas, under this system, the person who decides what the rewards should be is sitting in an office at the end of a phone and has neither the experience nor the knowledge adequately to control what happens or to ensure that efficiencies are made.