The arrogance of the Legal Aid Agency in their “a rush & a push & the land is ours” approach of deciding not to delay mandating CCMS from 1 April 2016 was frustrating and disappointing. When mandated, the system had not been working for several weeks beforehand following what the LAA refer to as a series of “enhancements” but what are known in common parlance as “fixing the latest error”. The net result is that CCMS is still unstable and prone to errors. I have lost count of the number of times I and my colleagues have been unable to log in, have logged in & automatically been logged out, have been told we are using back/forward buttons on browsers when we have done no such thing and have had to apologise to clients for wasting their time.
R (Eastwood) -v- The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
R (Eastwood) – v – the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead [2016] EWCA Civ 437, 10 May 2016
In this case, applications for permanent and temporary planning permission for a Gypsy/Traveller site in the Green Belt were refused but 18 months was given for compliance.
Exceptional Funding
The Director of Legal Aid Casework and the Lord Chancellor – v – IS [2016] EWCA Civ 464, Court of Appeal, 20 May 2016
IS was a party acting by the Official Solicitor and was trying to obtain representation to assist him in an immigration matter.