Unbilled Inactive Cases Exercise: Key Details
In January 2025, the LAA will be sending reminders to legal aid providers regarding cases that have been identified as inactive but for which work has been completed and billing is pending.
This exercise follows a similar review conducted in January 2024, where providers were contacted to update the status of approximately 17,000 cases that showed no significant activity over the past 12 months.
Criteria for Inactive Cases
Cases are flagged as inactive if there has been no significant activity recorded in the Client and Case Management System (CCMS) or older civil systems within the last 365 days.
Significant activity includes submissions such as applications, amendments, outcomes, bills, provider transfer requests, and prior authority requests. Around 7,000 cases have been identified where providers have indicated that the work is completed but no bill has been submitted.
The Economic Impact
This exercise is crucial for predicting legal aid expenditure and ensuring timely payments to providers, which in turn benefits the financial stability of legal aid firms. It also helps in effective risk management from the LAA’s perspective.
Statistics and Scope
- Around 7,000 cases are currently unbilled despite providers indicating that the work is completed.
- The exercise involves reviewing cases where Payments on Account (POA) have been made but no billing has occurred.
- The LAA is focusing on a subset of approximately 17,000 cases identified in the previous review.
The LAA will send emails with spreadsheets containing the relevant cases to providers, who are expected to focus on billing these cases to ensure they are paid and closed.
If no billing activity occurs, the LAA will send a final prompt before considering closing the case and recovering any outstanding POA.
Progress and Targets
- Providers have been given a timeframe to respond and update the status of their cases.
- The LAA aims to minimize the number of inactive cases to improve the efficiency of the legal aid system.
- A light-touch process is being developed to allow providers to simply indicate on CCMS whether a case is ongoing or will be billed.
Local and Sector-Specific Impact
The exercise will have a direct impact on legal aid firms, ensuring they receive timely payments for completed work. This will help in maintaining the financial health of these firms and enhancing the overall efficiency of the legal aid system.
Immediate Implications
Providers need to be proactive in responding to the LAA’s prompts to avoid any potential action such as case closure and recovery of outstanding POA. This immediate action will help in streamlining the billing process and ensuring that only genuinely ongoing cases remain active.
Broader Significance
The LAA’s initiative to manage inactive cases is part of a broader strategy to improve the management and efficiency of the legal aid system.
By ensuring that cases are billed and closed in a timely manner, the LAA can better predict legal aid expenditure and maintain a more accurate and up-to-date system.
