The Community Legal Service (Funding) (Counsel in Family Proceedings) (Amendment) Order 2003

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order makes amendments to the Community Legal Service (Funding) (Counsel in Family Proceedings) Order 2001 (S.I. 2001/1077), which provides the framework for the graduated fee scheme for advocates in family proceedings.

Most of the amendments follow from the introduction of the Protocol for Judicial Case Management in Public Law Children Act Cases (“the Protocol”) and the Practice Direction (Care Cases: Judicial Continuity and Judicial Case Management) made by the President of the Family Division, which come into force on 1st November 2003. These changes are as follows:

• Advocates Meetings and Case Management Conferences held in accordance with the Protocol are remunerated under function F3.

• There will be an additional payment for Case Management Conferences. This is equal to 50% of the current hearing unit fee under function F3.

• Attendance of a Pre-Hearing Review will be remunerated under function F5 where the counsel attending the Pre-Hearing Review and the main hearing are the same, and function F3 where they are different.

• Work on written submissions consequential on the main hearing are remunerated as a function F5 secondary hearing unit.

The Order also makes a number of other amendments to the Community Legal Service (Funding) (Counsel in Family Proceedings) Order 2001. In particular:

• Proceedings under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 and the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 are removed from the scope of the graduated fees scheme.

• Proceedings under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 are added to category 2 in Schedule 2 to the 2001 Order (public law children).