Family Law

In order to support your profit-cost payments on account (POA) on the Client and Cost Management System (CCMS), you need to submit a copy of the ledger, ie full details of the case running costs incurred to date.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) needs you to provide this evidence of the costs incurred so it can check that it is making the correct payments and comply with National Audit Office recommendations. This is being introduced gradually and is not yet required for non-CCMS cases.

Up to 75% profit-cost payment

As a legal aid provider, you will still only get paid up to 75% of profit-costs. Providers have asked the LAA if CCMS identifies if a provider is claiming more than 75% of the costs. The LAA has confirmed that providers using CCMS will be asked to enter 100% of the profit-costs incurred to date. The system then calculates 75% of the costs and the caseworker (not CCMS) will check the POA value against the supporting evidence.

Related to this, providers have also asked – for fixed fee cases – if they will receive 75% of the actual costs or the fixed fee. The LAA has confirmed that the costs paid are calculated in the same way as currently.

Other things that haven’t changed

The POA payment rules are the same, ie you can only submit two profit-cost POAs every 12 months. The disbursement POA process also remains the same.

Click here for information on how to submit a claim.