Criminal law solicitors have expressed concerns over the Legal Services Commission’s track record on IT projects as it began a phased national rollout of its new electronic criminal billing and claim forms this month.

The new eForms are part of the LSC’s delivery transformation programme, designed to reduce costs and speed up and simplify its processes.

The online forms, which have been piloted by 25 firms since December 2009, will replace the current paper-based submissions. The forms covered include applications for prior authority for legal aid (CDS4) and applications for extension of upper limits (CDS5).

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said: ‘Every time I hear the word e-anything from the LSC it makes me feel like someone is pinching me and it causes me pain.

‘The LSC has been piloting the eForms, but their track record is so poor when it comes to IT initiatives that I struggle to have confidence in the successful rollout.'

Greg Powell, an executive officer of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association, said: ‘If it works it will be a step forward, but all history tells us to be very cautious about believing that anything the LSC does will be either simple or work.’

Powell added that he hoped the scheme would not suffer the same problems as the recent criminal contract tender process, which had been ‘a nightmare’.

However, Anthony Edwards, senior partner at London firm TV Edwards, which has been piloting some of the new eForms, said: ‘They are working extremely well and saving us hours of time. The LSC has been fast in returning them to us, and they are proving very popular among our team.’

Phil Lambert, executive director for business support at the LSC, said: ‘I am extremely mindful that previous LSC technology-led implementations have caused difficulties to our providers, and eForms cannot be allowed to give us all a similar headache once again.

‘Therefore, we are working closely with highly respected systems integrator CapGemini, the eForms software will be hosted on external servers, and we have a carefully structured project team to manage the programme and learn lessons from the past.

‘Our pilot started small, received excellent feedback and we are building from there. We will not commit to moving to further stages unless control gateways have been successfully passed.’