Legal Aid Newsletter | May 2026
Welcome to your May 2026 edition of the Legal Aid newsletter from Resolution.
We will continue to put any issues you’d like us to raise to the LAA. If you have any feedback from this newsletter, or would like our team to look into any problems you face, please email us.
Resolution working for you – Gateway evidence checking service
We are delighted that the LAA has agreed to retain the gateway evidence checking service which they introduced during the cyber security incident period. We know that members find it useful, so we asked them to continue it when they were planning to withdraw it.
This email service enables you to check with the LAA whether evidence would be considered valid to bring the matter into scope, e.g. before delegated functions are used. You can email: [email protected].
They aim to respond to these emails within 48 hours. The LAA answered about 1,138 provider gateway evidence queries between November 2025 and February 2026.
Resolution working for you – Pathfinder/Child Focussed Model Courts Pilot
In March we reported on discussions between Resolution, other practitioner representative groups and the Ministry of Justice on difficulties caused because the current legal aid private family law representation fee scheme was not designed to apply to the expedited process used in the Pathfinder/Child Focused Model Courts Pilot.
As the new model runs on much shorter timescales than the standard Child Arrangements Programme, practitioners often have only a few days between receiving documentation and the Decision Hearing. The LAA routinely requests both parties’ statements in order to decide to extend the scope of legal aid for the Decision Hearing. The timeframes often make producing these statements in time impossible.
A ministerial decision on a solution is awaited. In the meantime, the MoJ have advised that providers should contact the LAA Customer Service Team – 0300 200 2020 – if they have a submission which they are concerned will not be processed in time prior to a Decision Hearing. The LAA generally aims to expedite a submission where the relevant hearing is within 5 working days. However, it is not guaranteed and so we hope the MoJ will authorise a better solution.
Resolution Awards – Nominations open for Resolution Legal Aid Practitioner of the Year
Nominations are now open for the Resolution Awards 2026, celebrating the professionals making a lasting impact across family justice – including the vital work carried out by legal aid practitioners supporting some of the most vulnerable people in society.
The Resolution Legal Aid Practitioner of the Year award recognises outstanding commitment to access to justice in family law. The category celebrates practitioners who apply specialist expertise in complex family cases, advocate for meaningful change within the justice system, and show exceptional resilience while supporting clients through challenging circumstances.
Resolution is encouraging colleagues, organisations and peers to submit nominations for individuals whose dedication often goes unseen but makes a profound difference to families in need. Those working across the sector are invited to help shine a spotlight on these achievements by nominating deserving practitioners for recognition at the 2026 awards.
LAA provider survey – closes 1 June
The LAA launched its provider survey on 21 April. Your LAA contact should have received an invitation and links by email. If they haven’t, or you have any other queries, you can contact the LAA Insights Team by email.
We know members have mixed feelings about the survey; on one hand it’s an opportunity to give the LAA/MoJ current feedback on how they can improve their systems and processes; on the other, you may feel that the LAA already know what needs to be done and you do enough unremunerated work as it is.
When we attend meetings with the LAA/MoJ, they stress that they need up to date information to brief Ministers, so we believe survey results will strengthen the arguments for changes such as fee increases. If you can complete the survey, it will be very much appreciated.
Standard Contract 2024 – tender remains open
The 2024 Standard Civil Contract ends on 30 June 2028. If you hold an existing contract and wish to apply for a new office or category of law, you can make a request through your Contract Manager.
New entrants can apply through the tendering process, which will remain open until 31 March 2027.
Means expert service
Providers who have complex queries in relation to a client’s financial eligibility assessment, can seek assistance from a dedicated team of caseworkers before granting emergency representation under delegated functions.
Queries should be sent to [email protected]. They aim to respond to these emails within 48 hours.
The team answered 387 queries between November 2025 and February 2026, and the most frequent issues concerned were:
- Property/equity & Trapped Capital (including SMOD, pensioner disregard, ownership of shares)
- Benefits & passporting (especially UC nil payment, housing element, disregards)
- Evidence & documents (including translations)
- Impact of changes in circumstances
Certificates granted/amended during the cyber-security period – LAA guidance
The LAA has told us that every effort is being made to improve the time taken to make decisions on application and amendment submissions. They have adopted a streamlined approach to applications granted under delegated functions; but they ask that all submissions should continue to be accompanied by the information that would normally be provided.
The LAA says that feedback from their caseworkers indicates submissions are being made with incomplete information, which creates delays as missing documents and/or information are requested and supplied. Where applicable, please ensure submissions include:
- Full evidence of financial eligibility
- A complete statement of case
- Court orders and relevant supporting documents
- Gateway evidence
- Expert reports
- Correct proceedings and scope limitations
Caseworker comments
“If you have used delegated functions to amend your certificate before 01/12/25 ensure to detail the date of delegation and what you have delegated for is detailed in your statement.”
“Incorrect scope limitations takes caseworkers a long time to fix on our side of CCMS. Providers taking the time to input correctly on submission would enable me to process more applications.”
LAA updates – High Cost Family Team performance
During the contingency period The High Cost Family Team received around 6,500 case plans. Since CCMS was restored they have received 5,040 case plans – down by around 22% when compared with this time last year.
During the contingency period intakes were around 64% lower than normal. The Team estimates that around 21,000 case plans were not submitted, so they are gathering information on how much outstanding High Cost Family work firms have yet to submit. Due to the profile of work they received during contingency – mainly Hourly Rates case plans – they have a working assumption that any ‘missing’ case plans will be mostly CCFS cases.
They are turning around case plan decisions within 18 – 20 working days. VHCC, Case Enquiries and Amendments are currently being processed within 3 days of receipt. Since April 2025 the team have received 5 complaints – one of which was justified.
The High Cost Fixer service remains available if you disagree with a decision the team has made – email: [email protected]. This service is available for all areas of High Cost Family work, including work that was submitted under contingency.
LAA updates – Average Payment Scheme Recoupments
Between May 2025 and January 2026, £395 million was paid through the Average Payments Scheme. 1,315 solicitor accounts and 2,058 barristers opted in for at least one week. This allowed cash flow to be maintained while CCMS was offline due to the cybersecurity incident.
Following the restoration of CCMS to all civil users on 1 December 2025, this scheme closed on 12 January 2026, with final contingency payments received on 19 January. The first recoupments were taken alongside the payment run on 2 February 2026. All providers who opted into the scheme should have received a statement setting out their recoupment schedule. If this has not been received, solicitors should contact their contract manager, barristers should email [email protected].
Solicitors and barristers may request a two week pause on the recoupment schedule, using the contact details listed above.
Reasons a pause may be required
SiLAS user registration and reactivation – process change
The LAA has notified providers that all requests for SiLAS user registration or account reactivation should now be directed to [email protected]. This inbox is monitored daily by a team in Contract Management and Commissioning to ensure requests are actioned promptly.
For new users within existing firms, provider declarations and organograms can be found online. These should be sent directly to the LAA user registration team when requesting access, copying in your Contract Manager for information.
CCMS Notifications
The LAA has issued guidance on how to view, action, and receive actions and notifications. This will have been sent to your named LAA Liaison contact.
Since the introduction of Sign into Legal Aid Services (SiLAS) accounts, the way actions and notifications are accessed and received depends on whether they relate to pre-SiLAS or SiLAS usernames. All emails relating to outstanding actions and notifications are sent from: [email protected]
The LAA is aware that users may receive the same email notification for actions and notifications across both their pre and post-SiLAS user accounts, including Remittance Advices, and they say they are actively working to reduce this.
Submit Bulk Claims (SaBC) updates and SiLAS user registrations
The LAA has issued guidance on how to submit bulk claims and SiLAS user registrations. This will have been sent to your named LAA Liaison contact.
Inactive Cases in CCMS
On Sunday 17 May the LAA will recommence sending out Inactive Case Review prompts in CCMS. These are prompts generated automatically by the system and ask you to confirm the status of an ongoing and unbilled case following a period of inactivity.
These prompts are intended to help providers identify older cases that may be ready to be billed and to help the LAA manage ongoing cases, making sure only active cases are in the system. The LAA is expecting in the region of 4,000 notifications to be sent, representing about 2% of all ongoing legal aid cases.
If you receive one of these prompts, please open the notification and select the relevant status of the case from the drop-down list and then click submit. There is also a free text box, but completing this field is not mandatory.
If you tell the LAA that your case has been completed and no bill is due, they will take steps to close the case down and archive it. This will include recoupment of any outstanding Payment on Account (POA) against the case record.
Following the CCMS outage, the period of inactivity before the system will prompt you has been extended from 365 days to 608 days (20 months), due to the impact of the outage and to allow you to focus on the oldest cases first. The LAA will keep this position under review with the aim of returning to 365 days inactivity in future.