Civil costs

The Civil Justice Council has approved the creation of a Costs Working Group.

The working group will consider four areas:

  • A review of Costs Budgeting
  • A review of Guideline Hourly Rates (GHRs)
  • Examination of costs under pre-action protocols/portals and the digital justice system
  • Consideration of the wider impact of the extension of Fixed Recoverable Costs (FRC)

The work will be overseen by a steering group. The steering group will liaise with a wider working group composed of representative interests, as necessary throughout the process.

Consultation

The working group has launched a public consultation, which will run for 3 months until Friday 30 September 2022 at 12pm. Read the full consultation paper online (PDF).

Responses to the consultation should be submitted online by file upload (external link).

For ease, a copy of the consultation questions is available as a word document (Word doc).

Steering Group

  1. Birss LJ (Deputy Head of Civil Justice)
  2. Joanna Smith J (High Court Judge)
  3. Master Amanda Stevens (Queen’s Bench Master)
  4. HHJ Nigel Bird (Circuit Judge)
  5. DJ Judy Gibson (CJC & Regional Costs Judge)

Wider Working Group

  1. Judge Gordon-Saker (Senior Costs Judge)
  2. DJ Simon Middleton (Regional Costs Judge)
  3. Master Kaye (Chancery Master)
  4. Nicholas Bacon (Costs Barrister)
  5. Nicola Critchley (CJC & Defendant solicitor)
  6. Brett Dixon (Claimant solicitor)
  7. Larry Shaw (CILEx)
  8. Jack Ridgway (Costs Lawyer)
  9. Robert Wright (Ministry of Justice)
  10. Elisabeth Davies (CJC & Consumer Interest)
  11. Paul Seddon (Legal Aid Practitioners Group)
  12. Andrew Higgins (CJC & Academic)