4.1.6 Procedure for Court Ordered Commissioning |
SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER
It is often the case that services ordered to be commissioned during court proceedings are not referred to the Children's Commissioning Team (CCT) but are identified by the court or one of the parties to the hearings and agreed by the Court.
It is important that these procedures are followed to ensure that the experts or professionals commissioned receive prompt and appropriate payment and that, where applicable, recharges are made to other parties in respect of shared costs.
YOU SHOULD NOTE THAT NO AGREEMENT CAN BE GIVEN IN COURT TO A PARTICULAR PROVIDER UNTIL THE CASE HAS BEEN HEARD AT FUNDING PANEL FOR PROVIDER AND FUNDING TO BE APPROVED.
AMENDMENTS
This chapter was slightly updated in January 2012. The main changes are:
Change from Funding Panel Administrator to Funding Panel Co-ordinator
Where the costs of the service are shared jointly with other parties, the legal team will include these details in the Letter of Instruction.
Where funding has been approved by the Funding Panel there will be no requirement for an Iproc Order to be raised and the costs will be coded to the Public Law Outline budget.
Contents
- Court Procedure
- Legal Department Procedure
- Funding
- Letter of Instruction
- Payments to Providers
- Recharges
- Exceptions
1. Court Procedure
When a service provider is identified during court proceedings one of the parties to the proceeding and its legal representative will be identified as the Lead Authority.
The lead authority will normally commission the work directly in liaison with the social worker and prepare and circulate the Letter of Instruction.
The Court may authorise the split of funding for the work across the parties.
2. Legal Department Procedure
An Allocations hearing/Case Management Conference will be held and following this, the legal team will send a Protocol Key Steps form to the social worker (and his/her manager). The Legal team will copy the Key Steps protocol to the Commissioning Team. This document identifies what action has been agreed and the deadline for completion of various pieces of work and future court hearings.
The Legal department will commence identifying which provider will be commissioned.
3. Funding
The social worker will make contact with the Funding Panel Co-ordinator and arrange an appointment for the case to be presented at Panel.
The Commissioning Team will be responsible for confirming with Legal and Finance any split of funding.
The Legal team will request a written quotation/estimate from the provider they identify which will be copied to the Social Worker and the Commissioning team for presentation at funding panel. The quotation should include any additional costs for attendance at court.
On approval of the funding, the Commissioning team will update the financial database to record the services and sums agreed.
The Social worker will send a copy of the Funding Panel decision record to Legal services.
Any changes to the agreed costing or the work commissioned must be referred to the Commissioning team so that adjustments can receive financial approval from Funding Panel.
4. Letter of Instruction
Once the funding approval has been received the Legal team will draft the Letter of Instruction and issue this to the provider.
A copy of the Letter of Instruction will be sent to the Social Worker and to the Children's Commissioning Team.
The Commissioning team will, in liaison with the social worker and Legal service raise a contract for the provider including all details of the services required and deadlines to be met and the funding approved by panel.
5. Payments to Providers
The contracts issued to the provider will request that invoices are sent to the Children's Commissioning team. However it is often the case that the Legal team will receive the invoices, along with the report, from the instructed professionals. Legal services will date stamp the invoices on receipt.
Once the Legal team are satisfied that the invoice can be paid, an AP1 form will be attached and the Senior Lawyer will sign off the invoice for payment.
The original invoice must be sent to Finance Officer in the Children's Commissioning team for coding and updating of financial record systems.
Any correspondence between Children's Commissioning Team, the Payments team or Resources Finance and the provider must be copied to Legal services in order that they can deal with any queries from the provider.
6. Recharges
Where the costs of the service are shared jointly with other parties, the legal team will include these details in the Letter of Instruction and will provide the Commissioning team of the details (names, addresses, contact,) for any recharge invoice and the Commissioning team will arrange for invoices to be issued.
Once recharge invoices are issued the responsibility for credit control will fall into normal financial processes and will not require Legal, Children's Commissioning or social workers to ensure reimbursements are received.
7. Exceptions
Where funding has been approved by the Funding Panel there will be no requirement for an Iproc Order to be raised and the costs will be coded to the Public Law Outline budget.
Exceptions to this are specific areas of work for which Legal services have a budget - these are DNA tests, Transcripts and Witness Expenses. The Senior Lawyer will code these invoices to Legal Services budgets and they will be processed by the Resources Finance Team.
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