The Ministry of Justice Fee Data Collection

On 20 August 2009, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published its Consultation Paper CP 18/09 – Legal Aid: Funding Reforms – that includes proposals on expert fees. It proposed introducing caps on the hourly charging rates for expert witness paid by the Legal services Commission (LSC). The cap levels were based on the current MoJ Guidance to Determining Officers and represented a significant cut on current average fee rates.

The MoJ received a large number of submissions and the overwhelming message was that implementing the proposal would very seriously reduce the pool of experts willing to undertake publicly funded work.

The MoJ accepted that its proposals couldn't go ahead without it knowing much more about what it pays for. Unbelievably, the payments made to expert witness are not specifically recorded by the LSC. Instead they are wrapped up in the overall disbursements paid to the lawyers. The MoJ is running a file-based data capture program during May, June and July 2010 to try and get some insight into what it pays for. However, it recognises that just looking at past invoices will not allow it to capture some important characteristics of the cases. We have, therefore, been asked to try and build a further data set capturing these less tangible activities.

What next
This fee data collection effort involves experts providing quite detailed information that may be commercially confident. Therefore, in order to protect your interests we have set up a secure system for this work. Please enter your invitation code below to proceed.