Quality and performance

On this page:

Crown Court - new case planning requirements impact assessment
Reviewing quality assurance
Assuring quality in the reformed legal aid system
Quality measurement tools
Assuring quality for advocates
The Quality Mark
How we measure performance

Crown Court - new case planning requirements impact assessment

The LSC has produced an initial equalities impact assessment of a proposal to require evidence of case planning in many crown court cases. The amount of work the proposal will entail for providers will be small, and there is no significant discriminatory effect of the policy, which aims to ensure that providers deliver in line with professional standards. The proposal has been incorporated in the latest draft of the Crime Specification and will be consulted on as part of contract discussions with representative bodies. The equality impact assessment can be found under Documents

Reviewing quality assurance

Our Quality Working Group reviews our processes for quality assurance.

Assuring quality in the reformed legal aid system

The LSC is committed to improving quality standards for clients. Only providers who deliver good quality advice to clients will be able to work in legal aid in the future.

Our policy paper 'Assuring And Improving Quality In The Reformed Legal Aid System' is under Documents, supported by a Q&A.

Quality measurement tools

The LSC is committed to ensuring clients have access to quality legal advice. We have developed quality of advice tools to assess and assure the quality of advice of our service providers.

Peer Review: an assessment of the competency of advice
Quality Profiles: indicate how service providers have performed over a period of time.

Assuring quality for advocates

We are developing a scheme to monitor advocacy quality, starting with criminal advocates practicing at Crown Court level and above.

We have produced an analysis of responses to the pilot project consultation and expect to publish details of the pilot in Summer 2008.

The Quality Mark

Only organisations that hold the Quality Mark can do legal aid work. We are reviewing the application and assessment process.

How we measure performance

The LSC is accountable to the government and the taxpayer for money paid out under contracts. We carry out Cost Compliance Audits to provide assurance that contract work is:

in line with the reasons why legal aid was granted
being carried out according to the contract rules.

Read more about cost compliance audits…

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Last updated: 25 May 2007