The LAA has announced today some important news in relation to crime contracts.

Existing Standard Contract Holders
The LAA are extending the current contracts until 31 March 2017.

All contract holders must formally accept the LAA’s offer to extend the contract. The LAA will be sending out extension letters shortly. You must look out for this letter and respond to it by 30 June 2016.

If you are concerned that you have not received the letter then you MUST contact the LAA before the deadline.
If you do not accept the extension then your contract will expire on the current end date of 10 January 2017.

New tender process
The LAA will shortly be tendering for new contracts (with a commencement date of 1 April 2017). This will be open to existing and new providers. If you don’t currently hold a contract, this will be your opportunity to obtain one.

This tender is predicted to open in about a month’s time. The actual timings are not confirmed. The LAA has advised however that it has just entered into a three week consultation with representative bodies on the content of the 2017 Standard Crime Contract – this consultation should conclude on or about 29 June 2016.

Once the consultation has been completed, the LAA has said that it will invite organisations to tender for this contract. The tender could therefore theoretically open any time after 29 June 2016.

Further details on this process will be published by the in due course. However, it is important that you keep the above timings in mind, especially when considering staff members’ summer annual leave. It would probably be safer to ensure that at least one manager is available in July to oversee the tender submissions. All recent LAA tenders have required the firm’s COLP to sign off the tender submission and so, assuming that this tender follows a similar process, your firm’s COLP should ensure that they are available/contactable during this period.