Bar Council revamps ProcureCo block contracting initiative
The Bar Council has revamped its approach to the ProcureCo model for tendering for block contracts of work, which was launched last year.
In an update to members of the bar, Chairman Peter Lodder QC and Chairman-Elect Michael Todd QC acknowledged that there had been “some uncertainty in the past few months about the pace and direction" of the initiative.
ProcureCo was designed to help chambers win contracts in area such as local authority work, criminal defence services let by the Legal Services Commission, and insurance business. It is part of the Bar Council’s wider Prepare for Change programme.
Lodder and Todd said the current policy vacuum in relation to the government’s proposals for competition in criminal defence services had allowed the Bar Council to replace the original arrangements for ProcureCo with a “new, leaner” three-tier structure.
This involves:
- A strategy group: comprising the Chairman and Chairman-Elect of the Bar, Richard Salter QC, Maura McGowan QC (Vice Chairman-Elect), Michael Bowes QC, the six Circuit Leaders, Max Hill QC (Chairman-Elect of the CBA), Paul Mendelle QC and Nichola Higgins (YBC Chair)
- A trouble-shooting group: chaired by the Chairman-Elect, this will “focus on technical and practical questions in relation to contracting, the ProcureCo model and the interaction between new forms of practice and changes in ways of working with the Code of Conduct”
- Ad hoc, issue-specific satellite groups: A local authority contracting group has been established under the leadership of Catharine Otton-Goulder QC “to facilitate ways in which the Bar might contract with local authorities”.
The Bar Council’s moves comes as it continues to campaign in the media and in Parliament to resist further cuts in legal aid.
Philip Hoult
