§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. David Lammy)I am today announcing that the Government intend to implement a package of measures which will help achieve better value for money in the Criminal Defence Service (formerly Criminal Legal Aid) while ensuring that help continues to go to those who need it most.
The package draws upon proposals contained in the consultation paper on the Criminal Defence Service (CDS) "Delivering Value for Money in the Criminal Defence Service", which was published last year. After considering the responses to the consultation we intend to introduce the following changes to the CDS:
Strengthening the operation of Recovery of Defence Costs Orders (RDC0s);Abolishing advocacy assistance for early hearings;Restricting the scope of the court duty solicitor scheme to remove access for clients who are not in custody and who are charged with non-imprisonable offences;Abolish post-charge advice and assistance in criminal proceedings (except that provided by the court duty solicitor);Limiting the provision of free police station advice in certain cases to telephone advice only (with limited exceptions).I believe that these changes strike the right balance between ensuring the taxpayer receives good value for money and ensuring that publicly funded legal aid is available to those who need it most. We will of course keep the impact of these proposals under review.