Transfer of Legal Aid

“The Criminal Procedure Rule Committee secretariat has received enquiries about the form authorised by the Lord Chief Justice for use in connection with CrimPR 46.3 (Application to change legal representative: legal aid).

The authorised form is published beneath the Part 46 heading at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/criminal/forms.

At the foot of the form it is dated February 2016. Part 1 of the form requires information from the applicant defendant. Part 2 requires information from the proposed new representative. Part 3 invites a response to the application from the defendant’s current representative. Part 4 records the court’s directions and decision. The form is so structured to correspond with the procedure prescribed by rule 46.3; which rule is so structured in order to accommodate the requirements of regulation 14 of the Criminal Legal Aid (Determinations by a Court and Choice of Representative) Regulations 2013.

It appears that at least one unauthorised version of the form is in circulation. It is superficially the same as the authorised form but it is dated January 2018 and in it the sequence of Parts 2 and 3 is reversed, so that the current representative’s response becomes part of the defendant’s application and the proposed representative is invited to respond. Apart from the fact that this contravenes the requirements of rule 46.3, in some circumstances it may work to the disadvantage and professional embarrassment of the current representative. The provenance of the unauthorised form is unknown.

Some representatives are understood to have been persuaded that the authorised version published at the address above has been superseded. It has not.”