IntroductionCriminal caseCriminal caseCriminal case
12.1The 2017 Standard Crime Contract governs criminal work where representation is granted after 1 April 2017. The contract comprises the Standard Terms and the Specification. A Contract will only be available to those who have successfully bid in the non-competitive bid round conducted in 2016.
12.2Criminal work is divided into classes by the contract:
•investigations – work done pre-charge;
•proceedings – post-charge court work that does not fall into any other class;
•appeals and reviews – post-conviction work on appeals and reviews of convictions or sentences;
•prison law – work in relation to parole, treatment or discipline in the prison system;
1Note that much prison law work was taken out of scope of legal aid altogether in December 2013. •associated civil work – judicial review, habeas corpus and Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 work.
2Standard Crime Contract Specification 2017 para 1.3. In addition, VHCCs (very high cost cases) can be regarded as an extra class of work.
12.3A case may move through several classes. For example, a client arrested and charged with burglary will start in the investigations class, then move into the proceedings class; if convicted, he or she may have further cases in the appeals and prison law classes. Each of those classes of work has separate rules and funding mechanisms, and we will look at each in turn in this chapter. We will also consider the general rules which apply to all classes of work.