Will you make any allowance for missed deadlines caused by unfamiliarity with the new system or a system failure?
Yes.
A circular will be issued to the profession providing full details.
What happens if your system fails and I cannot submit applications/requests via the online portal or make payment requests?
If the system fails to launch successfully, the Agency will roll back to the existing system and issue instructions to solicitors.
What is your contingency for a system outage?
The system has been designed to be fully resilient. The infrastructure has been built to ensure there is no single point of failure.
The system resides across a primary and a secondary data centre to ensure that in the event of failure in one data centre (or indeed the complete loss of one of the data centres) the system will still be able to operate from the other data centre. The supplier’s Business Continuity plans and failover are regularly tested as part of the contractual arrangements.
Additionally, LSA has its own Business Continuity plans which would be enacted in the unlikely event of a service disruption through system issues or loss of a building.
My client has a legal aid certificate for proceedings which have been transferred to a different court tier. Do I need to submit a new application?
As is the current process, where legal aid is sought for a different court to that originally applied for, a fresh application request will be necessary. The information required for the higher court may be different to that asked for in the lower court and it might be that the financial eligibility test will also be different.