From October, the Quality Audit team will be in contact with family violence panel members to support practitioners to meet their obligations as outlined in the Practice Standards.
These audits will help us ensure the best possible experience for the people we are assisting in family violence matters, as well as promote practitioners who are leading the way, delivering great services to their clients.
The Magistrates’ Court of Victoria has recently issued Practice Direction 17 of 2020. It is aimed at progressing cases in the backlog and increasing the use of online hearings where appropriate.
Practice Direction 17 requires practitioners to take the following steps.
Practitioners should enter their appearance on Electronic Filing Appearance System (EFAS) for all summary stream criminal matters where they are acting.
The Children’s Court of Victoria has recently issued Practice Direction 11 of 2020 for matters in the criminal division, as part of its ongoing response to COVID-19.
Unless the court directs otherwise all proceedings will be held remotely by audio visual link (including WebEx).
We have introduced new fees as a result of COVID-19 and the court’s response to the pandemic.
Case conference fees the case conference fee is determined by how the hearing eventuated. For example, if a resolution discussion hearing becomes a sentence indication then the sentence indication fee applies. As the practitioners may not know what aid is needed prior to the hearing, retrospective applications can be made.
In 2019, we reviewed our Assignments, Quality Audits and Panels teams to improve our services and to align with our organisation strategy – Strategy 22.
We consulted with many of our practice partners to examine options for improving our relationships, processes and quality of services. As a result of these reviews, we identified that a new structure would better support our practice partners and delivery of client focussed services.
We have amended our Panel Deed and schedules to reflect recent changes in our grants compliance framework.
In 2015, we responded to practitioner feedback by ceasing to restitute funds for grants which we later assessed as not meeting the funding guidelines. We recognised that in most cases these situations arose from a genuine error, and that restitution might create a barrier to practitioners doing legal aid work.
Today we are pleased to be launching a new suite of panel application forms and web content, with changes to panel eligibility criteria and assessment processes. These improvements aim to make it easier and more seamless for private practitioners to apply to our panels, and in doing so to increase access to justice for people with legal needs.
