In edition 138 of BC Disease News we reported on one of the unfinished elements of Lord Justice Jackson’s civil reforms, the new format bill of costs. In April, LJ Jackson advocated for the new format to be used from October 2017 but recommended that this should be decoupled form the J-Codes to make it more palatable to the profession.
It has been announced this week that the updated Practice Direction 51L, in force from 3 October 2016, will extend the voluntary pilot of the new format for a further year, ‘with a view to establishing a mandatory form of bill of costs to apply to all work done after 1 October 2017’.
The Civil Procedure Rule Committee are scheduled to meet in May 2017, where they will review the pilot scheme and aim to fix the mandatory form with changes expected to be made to alleviate concerns raised about the existing form’s reliance on J-Codes. This reflects the concerns expressed by LJ Jackson earlier this year.
It has been reported that most of the criticisms about the new format bill of costs have been aimed at the J-Codes, with them being described as too complicated, labour-intensive and causing time spent on costs to increase by at least 100%.
The revised practice direction which can be accessed here, aims to simplify the new format.