The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) stipulates “the number of Claims rejected by us must not exceed 5% of all Claims submitted in that Schedule period”.
The purpose of setting a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) by the LAA is to assist firms in monitoring their performances under the contract. Sanctions can be imposed by the LAA if firms regularly fail to meet a KPI. This can result in an increase in audits undertaken by the LAA or, in extreme situations, a contract sanction.
Rejections of claims are split into 2 categories: 1) Hard Reject and 2) Priority Reject.
Hard rejected claims count towards the KPI; claims which are consistently rejected will impact upon a firm’s cash flow.
The common reasons why a claim is rejected by the LAA include:
- Counsel fees cannot be reconciled with the amount paid by the LAA
- Disbursement voucher is not provided or contains insufficient detail
- Forms are not properly completed
- Insufficient Counsel cost allocation on CCMS
- Outcome codes not processed
- Multiple document requests and failure to upload documents
- Incorrect fee scheme selected
- Interim bill not applicable
- Final bill already authorised
- Out of scope work included within claim
The LAA provide checklists to ensure firms are checking the minimum requirements upon submission of a claim, which are used by the caseworkers when they assess a claim. However, this does not necessarily mean a claim will not be rejected.
The LAA do not always get it right and can incorrectly reject a claim. In these circumstances, they have a specialist team dedicated to reviewing challenges brought forward by a firm.
The Civil Claim Fix team can be contacted at LAACivilClaimFix@justice.gov.uk if you believe the LAA have rejected a claim incorrectly.
We are experts in submitting claims to the LAA and we make stringent checks to ensure claims are paid on their first submission. We are also able to review why your rejection rates are high and implement systems to ensure that these are reduced to be in-line with the national KPI of 5%. We have excellent success rates in ensuring the KPI is below 5% to avoid contract sanctions.
Please contact us for your outsourcing requirements to find out how we can assist your firm.