YOUR VOICE MATTERS! AS A RESULT OF YOUR CONCERNS WHICH WE HAVE RAISED PUBLICLY, THE TRUTH BEHIND THE OPERATION OF THE NCDV IS BEGINNING TO UNFOLD.

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FOLLOWING OUR CONCERNS REGARDING THE UNETHICAL WAY THAT THE NCDV HAVE BEEN OPERATING USING THE POLICE TO PROMOTE THEIR BUSINESS WHILST AT THE SAME TIME THE LAA APPEAR TO HAVE BEEN DEFRAUDED THERE HAVE BEEN SOME MAJOR CHANGES AND WE DO NOT FEEL THAT THESE ARE IN THE INTERESTS OF VICTIMS.

​

THEY STILL APPEAR TO BE UP TO THEIR OLD TRICKS USING QUOTES FROM POLICE OFFICERS TO PROMOTE THEIR SERVICE HOWEVER; SOME POLICE FORCES HAVE BECOME WISE DUE TO THE ADVERSE PUBLICITY AND ARE NO LONGER PROMOTING THE BUSINESS SO THE NCDV HAVE WIDENED THEIR NET.

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THEY ARE NOW PROMOTING FREE REGIONAL MULTI AGENCY TRAINING  WHICH IS THE USUAL 45 MINUTE PITCH TO USE THEIR SERVICE AND NOT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TRAINING. NO DOUBT VARIOUS LOCAL SUPPORT ORGANISATIONS WILL JUMP AT THE OPPORTUNITY BELIEVING THEY ARE GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.

​

INFORMATION WE HAVE RECEIVED CONTINUES TO SUGGEST THAT NCDV FOCUS ON CASES WHERE LEGAL AID CAN BE OBTAINED AND OTHERS WHO ARE UNABLE TO AFFORD A SOLICITOR AND DO NOT QUALIFY FOR LEGAL AID ARE UNLIKELY TO RECEIVE ASSISTANCE. STATISTICS ARE NOT PUBLICLY AVAILABLE AND THE NCDV DO NOT COME UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AS THEY ARE A PRIVATE BUSINESS.

​

THE FOUNDER STEVE CONNOR HAS ALSO RESIGNED LEAVING MARK GROVES AS THE SOLE DIRECTOR AT THIS TIME.

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I-DOC SERVE A PROCESS SERVING COMPANY SEEM TO HAVE FOLDED, IT IS NOT CLEAR WHETHER THIS WAS TO DO WITH INVOICES WHICH WERE INFLATED AND SENT BACK TO SOLICITORS FOR FORWARDING ON TO THE LAA OR OUR MENTION OF THE FALSE CLAIM OF A NATIONAL POLICE DATABASE HOWEVER; IT APPEARS SOME OF THEIR STAFF NOW WORK FOR THE NCDV AND IT APPEARS THE COMPANIES WERE CLOSELY RELATED IN ANY EVENT WITH KEY INDIVIDUALS HAVING FINGERS IN THE SAME PIES.

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WITHOUT GOING INTO TOO MANY DETAILS, THE NCDV SEEM TO HAVE NOW SET UP THEIR OWN PROCESS SERVING COMPANY AND ARE SUB CONTRACTING THE WORK OUT.

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THEY HAD BEEN USING A COMPANY CALLED LONDON HOUSE INTERNATIONAL AND THE FOLLOWING E MAIL COMMUNICATIONS TO PROCESS SERVERS TEND TO SUGGEST THAT THEY WERE NOT HAPPY WITH THE FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY AND HAVE WITHDRAWN HOWEVER; A NUMBER OF PROCESS SERVERS HAVE NOT BEEN PAID.

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London House International

 

Jul 2016

 

Dear all

 

You will have noticed that the NCDV work has caused us a few issues and we have decided that the amount of work and the fees do not justify continuing this as a middle man. NCDV will be managing their cases internally from now on.

 

Please ensure that any jobs you currently have from us are completed, returned through London House and invoiced to us.

 

I would like to say that we have all been most impressed with your professionalism and approach to us and to doing this work.  I am sure you will continue to get work from NCDV and we hope that we will be able to use your skills also to get work done for some of our other clients so expect to hear from us soon.

 

All the best

 

 

Kind regards

 

Chris Metalle

Director

 

 

I have been alerted by a few of you to the need to be very much more detailed on the information we need to send back to the LAA for invoices and the attached seems a better format than the one I had previously sent out as it contains a full activity log with miles and hours taken. Please try to send us something using this format or a close equivalent to avoid delays in the payments from the LAA.

 

Thank you

 

Kind regards

 

Chris Metalle

Director

 

Dear all

 

You will have seen today emails from NCDV and I-docs explaining that the contract has moved to us but that NCDV will also be handling a number of the cases themselves. We do not need you to register with us as we have your details but what we do need are:

 

1. A mobile telephone number on which we can reach you so that any urgent messages can be passed to you quickly;

2. A list of the postcode areas you currently cover for LAA work.

 

Please let us know if you no longer wish to carry out this work.

 

You need to be aware that the LAA require us to invoice on a time & materials basis so we will be requesting you do the same – the fixed fee arrangements cannot work under the LAA regime so we will be asking you to undertake the work on LAA rates and we will provide you with a template spreadsheet for the details which will need to include the postcodes from and to which you have travelled.

 

Please email the above information to Jacquay@londonhouseinternational.com.

 

Many thanks

 

Chris Metalle

London House International Ltd

 

 

Hi all

 

We have reviewed the charging basis for this work as it clearly makes it unattractive if we take our costs out of your rates. We will, therefore, be paying 100% of the LAA rates (which aren’t that great anyway) and hopefully we will manage to get a more sensible arrangement with them in due course.

 

I will send over shortly the revised spreadsheet for logging the activity on each job and I will need you to include in the sheet the postcodes relating to the travel undertaken as this is required by the LAA.

 

Thanks

 

Kind regards

 

Chris Metalle

Director

______________________

 

Hi all

 

Many of you have replied to my message yesterday with understandable concerns regarding this work, the fee structures and the historical LAA approach. I fully appreciate that for some of you the need to make a first attempt within 24 hours is not attractive irrespective of any issue with fees.

 

Let me just say that I am alive to the fee concerns myself and I plan to seek an early audience with the LAA to raise them. However, I know that the previous supplier upset the LAA by its actions and a fruitful discussion with them will only be possible once we have established our credentials.

 

The issues that arose in the past and which I want us to avoid were:

 

·Process servers were paid a flat fee but the LAA were invoiced on a time & materials basis which led to inevitable questions as to how the invoices were created;

·The LAA had started to “audit” the work done by process servers precisely because of the above issue and I suspect they didn’t like what they found;

·The service provider had clearly decided the only way to make this work from a financial perspective was to be creative with the invoicing.

 

It is for these reasons that I have asked we all keep the invoicing consistent between us all so that there is a clear audit trail.

 

There is no doubt that the LAA have little concept of what fees are reasonable but this discussion needs to happen once things are underway and we can point to the true costs of these serves.

 

Kind regards

 

Chris Metalle

Director

 

Dear all

 

We have been invited to undertake national process serving work in significant quantities for a major organisation handling domestic violence cases. We are due to begin receiving this work early in July and volumes are likely to grow throughout July and August and could reach several hundred per month.

 

THIS WORK IS URGENT – YOU MUST BE PREPARED TO MAKE THE FIRST ATTEMPT AT SERVICE WITHIN 24 HOURS.

 

Please let us know if you are not willing to undertake work to these timescales as delays in serving the orders may result in physical harm to someone as well as the loss of this important client. You need to be aware that the nature of this work may also require you to attend court in more cases than you may have been used to with other work.

 

A full SLA will be posted onto JAS and we will require from you an invoice setting out the time taken to complete the work and the costs incurred. This is because all invoices have to be presented in line with Legal Aid Agency terms. Previously the party managing this contract has paid a flat fee to process servers and invoiced the solicitor on LAA terms but this has led to issues which we need to avoid.

The attached spreadsheet should help you create the invoice and we will need you to apply a 40% discount to us to cover our costs and a contribution we are asked to make to the maintenance of a central database of cases. The spreadsheet works from the current LAA fee scales which are £25.60 per hour outside London and £18.40 within London.

 

It is important you record and invoice for all time and costs to ensure you get proper value for the work you have done. This needs to include all time spent travelling to and from court, to and from the subject and preparation of the affidavit.

 

If you are already undertaking this work for another national organisation please be discreet about the fact that the work is moving across to us – we have been asked to keep this quiet for now.

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Nov 2016 

 

Dear Process Server

 

As you are aware we have completely changed the landscape for Legal Aid funded process serving in the past few months.

 

These changes have allowed us to develop a cost neutral department that now deals with a hugely increased volume of work greater than idocserve and LHS put together but without the huge administration burden for the Legal Aid Agency.

 

We are proud to be offering this fantastic service to solicitors across the country as well as reducing the cost to the public purse.

 

When we launched NCDV ASSIST Process Serving we quickly decided that the only sensible way forward was to try and come to an agreement with the LAA to introduce a fixed fee, this was agreed and put into practice on the 1st October 2016.

 

Many process servers were previously working on a fixed fee basis with idocserve, we thought this unfair when idocserve were charging a hourly rate to the LAA (completely within regulations) so we allowed you to charge an hourly rate. For many process servers this represented an opportunity to increase their income however many are still experiencing the somewhat arbitrary severe reductions applied by the LAA.

 

When the fixed fee rate was set with the LAA we thought it unfair to immediately reduce your rates back to the fixed fee levels that idocserve were paying so we decided to operate on a two tier fixed fee, existing process servers would be able to charge up to £80 for per instruction new process servers joining would charge a £60 flat fixed fee.

 

We have been operating at these two levels for the past few months at but as our volumes have increased it has become difficult for us to maintain these two levels from a practical, financial and administration perspective.

 

Therefore we have decided to drop the higher rate and fix the new rate indefinitely for invoices received after the 30th November 2016. Higher rate invoices must be received at billing@ncdv.org.uk prior to 30th November otherwise they will be automatically reduced.

 

You will not need to sign a new contract your invoices will automatically be reduced if they exceed the fixed fee rate however attached is an up to date contract you may wish to return. 

 

Sept 2016

 

Dear Process Server

 

The Legal Aid Agency have put forward a proposal to change the billing of process serving to fixed fee. Which means you will no longer need to detail and itemise your bill.

 

The maximum bill for process serving will be capped at £80+VAT which will cover all aspects relating to the service of Court documents as set out below;

 

Collection of papers

Mileage, parking and travel time

All aspects of attempts at service

Phone calls and texts to the respondent

Any associated waiting time/liaising with court staff

Swear Charges

All aspects of the preparation of the Affidavit

Any related incidental or admin costs

 

The fee is inclusive of repeated attempts and also substituted service, should this be requested from the court. No additional fees will be awarded for repeated attempts at service regardless of the circumstances.  

 

The new fixed fee will come into force from the 1st October 2016 any bills received by NCDV after that date over £80+vat will automatically be reduced. There will unfortunately be no exception to this so if you have any outstanding bills that are at a higher level I suggest you submit them post-haste to billing@ncdv.org.uk

 

You will no longer need to document your time or mileage however you should monitor the time you spend on a job to maximise your income. A job that takes 30 minutes will attract the same payment as one that takes 6 hours.

 

There will be no difference for inner and outer London work the fee will be the same.

 

If you wish to provide a sworn statement then the swear fee for this will not be claimable as a separate disbursement, many process servers are already providing certificates of service to solicitors so you will need to ensure the firm will accept these.

 

Many of you have experienced the severe write downs the LAA inflict on process servers bills, sometimes reducing them by 50% for what appears to be arbitrary reasons without any consideration for the time you spend on a job and for up to 12 months after your invoice has been settled, this will no longer happen under the fixed fee arrangement.

 

You are welcome to provide a monthly invoice that schedules all the jobs you have completed rather than individual ones.

 

 

Sept 2016

 

Dear Process Server

 

We have had notification that London House International are considering entering into a Creditors Voluntary Arrangement.

 

This is of course very sad as another company struggles for survival in the process serving sector.

 

Your invoices that you have submitted to them for payment will become part of any agreement they come to with you and other creditors with regards to how their future will unfold and any settlements they make. It is your decision on how you wish to pursue matters.

 

NCDV have made payments to LHI for the work you did for them for our solicitors so we are unable to short circuit this process.

 

I wish to take this opportunity to assure you of NCDVs future. We are committed to helping victims of domestic violence and abuse, our process serving department has been configured to operate as a cost neutral division and so puts no pressure on our financial position or the services we offer.

 

To make matters more secure the LAA have approached us with a fixed fee solution to process serving costs, we are in the final stages of negotiation. When this becomes live you will no longer have to detail time and mileage on your invoices or even send one invoice per job. The fixed fee level will be similar to what you have previously enjoyed but as I say this is still under negotiation.

 

 

Aug 2016

 

Thank you all for bearing with us through what has been quite a difficult period.

 

It has been a challenge to get the systems and processes in place to enable NCDV ASSIST to become England’s premier process serving organisation for victims of domestic violence and abuse, but we are getting there!

 

You will recognise Nuncia and Bernadette who have joined us from i-docserve, they have been thrust into the thick of things to help keep you guys working and have been processing your invoices to make sure you get paid.

 

As from now you should send your invoices to billing@ncdv.org.uk this is a dedicated email specifically created to deal with your invoices in a speedy fashion, some of you may have already sampled the speed we can operate at as we have been testing the system over the past few days.

 

If you send an invoice to orders@ncdv.org.uk or any other email address it will be returned back to you so please make sure you send your invoices to billing@ncdv.org.uk

 

More updates and inevitable changes will follow over the next few weeks. Thank you once again.

 

July 2016

 

 

 Dear Process Server

 

We are arranging to make payments to you with reference to your outstanding invoices for June to i-docserve, unfortunately we do not have any BACS details for any process server. We need you to reply to this email with your sort code and account number, DO NOT put any other information otherwise you will interfere with the process we have set up and there will be no payment made to you.

 

I will send you in the post a remittance advice, please check this carefully and if there are any missing invoices please advise.

 

 

 

 

Dear Process Server

 

Apologies for not addressing you personally.

 

If you have returned your SLA thank you and welcome to the NCDV ASSIST Process Serving team.

 

We will use our best endeavours to create a team that will be the leaders in this sector, developing best practice and putting in place innovations to solve issues of billing, resource and communication. We have designed this department to be cost neutral to NCDV, investment will be generated from within and together we will create the largest and most efficient process serving team in the country dedicated to victims of domestic violence and abuse balanced on giving the best value to the public purse.

 

We will also endeavour to provide you with the volume of work you have previously enjoyed from i-docserve. From an operational point of view there are a few changes to procedures you need to keep in mind.

 

These include:

 

1.                   No longer will you send us a draft of your affidavit of service, you will be responsible for sending this to the solicitor or just the sworn version if there is time.

 

2.                   You will need to scan over a copy of the sworn affidavit to us for us to upload it to ASSIST.

 

3.                   You will invoice NCDV for the number of hours you have spent and the number of miles you have covered. However you will need to be fully aware of the LAA guidelines. If the LAA write down your time spent NCDV will not challenge this and your invoice will be reduced.

 

4.                   There will be no need to update us with every attempt you can liaise with the solicitor, their contact details will be in the respondent information form.

 

5.                   Litigant in Person serves are rare however these are special cases that need to be done at a reduced subsidised fixed rate of £60 for 3 attempts. We are committed to helping everyone irrespective of their financial position get the access to justice and legal protection they require.

 

Please be aware that the LAA will not pay for excessive travelling time or mileage. Please read the LAA guidance. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/civil-news-claims-for-work-by-enquiry-agents-and-process-servers?dm_i=4P,496VU,2JGRU,FJCCY,1

 

If you have not already signed up to join this new and exciting team you will find the form attached for you to complete and send back to orders@ncdv.org.uk

 

I am aware that some of you have invoicing templates however I have attached for your information an example invoice that has been provided by a solicitor as their template for billing and is acceptable to the LAA.

 

NCDV ASSIST Process Serving launches on Monday 18th July at 1pm and some of our new team have come from i-docserve so they will be familiar to you, we cannot protect victims without an efficient process serving team and we thank you for your help and support.

 

Important contact details for you:

 

 

Dear Process Server

As you are aware I-docserve is no longer working with NCDV cases, with a view to continuing to offer protection to vulnerable victims NCDV have two options.

We have partnered with London House International and you should register with them to become one of their providers. Send an email to info@londonhouseinternational.com for more information.

Alternatively you can join the NCDV ASSIST Process Serving team which you will find attached further details.

We have taken this opportunity to review your charges and invoicing procedure, more details are in the attached, in summary rather than charging us a fixed rate you will charge us an hourly rate plus mileage and certain disbursements.

At NCDV your contact will be Jani orders@ncdv.org.uk , 08448044999 option 4

Updates on any cases you are currently working on should be emailed to Jani and she will keep the referrer updated.

We will inevitably go through a few teething pains and I thank you now for your understanding and continued support.

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