21.49Since the first version of CCMS was rolled out in Autumn 2012, it has been subject to a barrage of criticism from civil legal aid lawyers. A report by the Association of Costs Lawyers published in May 2015 concluded that the system had ‘multiple issues in every way a system can’ and that the LAA was in ‘institutional denial’ about its faults. Carol Storer, director of LAPG, told Legal Action in February 2017 that despite some improvements there were still problems ‘at every level’ with the system, from making applications, to billing, the stability of the platform and its inability to cope at peak times.1Catherine Baksi, ‘CCMS: despair at a system unfit for purpose’, February 2017 Legal Action 9. LAPG are currently running a survey of civil legal aid firms and the results of this are expected in April or May 2017.

21.50A worrying aspect of CCMS is the gulf between practitioners and the LAA over the controversy. The LAA argue that the system, which received a prize in the annual Civil Service Awards in November 2016, is performing well. In contrast, we cannot find any practitioner who does not have a serious concern about it. LAPG and the other organisations representing practitioners are going to continue pressurising the LAA to improve CCMS. LAG believes that the LAA cannot stick to its current line of defending the indefensible if it is to have any credibility with the firms and other organisations providing civil legal aid services.