The Legal Aid Agency has sought to assure anxious criminal legal aid providers that it will try to ensure they do not lose out on work when new contracts begin later this year.

An announcement by the agency last week on the 2022 crime contracts sparked widespread panic among criminal defence firms that they may not be able to join the October duty scheme despite submitting verification information to the agency ahead of the 27 March deadline. One practitioner told the Gazette their firm, which submitted all the required information on time but heard nothing back, would ‘sue the pants off’ the agency if it was unable to join the October rota.

Today, the agency posted an update stating that it is contacting providers to request duty solicitor details so it can start building rotas starting on 1 October.

All providers who ‘engaged with’ the verification process will receive a duty solicitor CRM12 form to complete together with confirmation of whether they have finished verification. Completed forms must be returned by 31 May.

The agency said: ‘The majority of providers hearing from us will be told that they have completed verification. If you are told that you have not completed verification, then we will continue to work with you. The aim will be to help you to complete verification for the earliest rota possible. Most providers in this position should still be able to join the October rota. Details of the outstanding requirements will be sent shortly to relevant providers after all forms are sent out through the message boards.’

The agency will also contact the ‘small’ number of providers who did not provide any verification information. ‘We will explain that they will be unable to join the October rota but that we will work with them if they still wish to participate in the process. The aim will be to help them join the next rota starting in January 2023,’ the agency said.

Practitioners are asked to contact the agency through the tender message board if they have not received a message by 20 May.