NATIONAL ROYAL MAIL POSTAL STRIKE - INFORMATION FOR THE LEGAL PROFESSION

Last update: 10 October 2007 - read:

• Questions and answers on queries from firms
• General advice from letter issued to firms

Questions and answers

For those firms who usually receive postal mail but have been advised that we will send it by DX:

Q.Will DX deliver to our office or do we need to pick it up from somewhere?
A. It will be delivered to your office.

Q. Will they uplift our mail to you?
A. No - but if you can go to your local DX Document Exchange, they will send mail to the Board, at no charge to you. When you go to your local DX Document Exchange, you should post it in the onwards box. The Board's DX addresses are:

• for applications mail - DX555251, Edinburgh 30
• for other mail - DX555250, Edinburgh 30

To find your nearest DX Document Exchange, go online at http://www.thedx.co.uk/ or contact their customer service department on tel 01506 854 581 or 0141 810 2640.

Please note that if you wish to use their DX service to send mail to others, you should contact them to discuss pricing and options.

Q. Who are the other mail providers that could be used instead of post?

If you wish to use another supplier, please contact the customer service departments of the two other delivery services that are commonly used by solicitors:

• DX - http://www.thedx.co.uk/ - customer service department on tel 01506 854 581 or 0141 810 2640.
• Legal Post - http://www.firstscottish.com/ - contact telephone 01383 826726
  
  

General advice from letter issued to firms

As you will be aware, it has been confirmed that there will be two national Royal Mail postal strikes from lunchtime on Thursday 4 October to lunchtime on Saturday 6 October, and from the early hours of Monday 8 October to the early hours of Wednesday 10th October.  The postal workers trade union also intends to run further industrial action from 15 October, through consecutive daily strikes by different departments in Royal Mail until the dispute is resolved.

Until postal services return to normal, we expect that legal aid mail will be disrupted.  We have taken a number of steps to minimise disruption, and will continue to process applications and accounts and issue correspondence as usual.  However, the dispute could impact on both letters sent to your firms and for the clients you represent.  This letter sets out the measures we are taking and also contains useful telephone and fax numbers.

Mail for your firm
For firms who use DX and Legal Post, their services will operate as normal, giving a next day business mail service.  Legal Aid Online users will also not be affected.

For firms who normally receive Royal Mail, we expect to be able to deliver to some firms using DX services, but around 80 firms will not receive postal mail from us.  For postal firms we aim to issue important decisions by fax.  (Further information is being provided on these arrangements to firms who use Royal Mail.)

Mail for clients
Postal mail that is sent between the Board and your clients – such as legal aid applicants or opponents – will not be delivered during the Royal Mail dispute.  In most situations, you will have received the decision or a copy of client correspondence.  You may therefore wish to contact your client and give them an update, or ask them to telephone the Board about their case.

In civil legal aid cases, where you represent an opponent, from Wednesday 3 October until 31 October 2007, whilst the legislation provides a 14 day period to make written representations, we will not issue a decision until 21 days have passed, which will provide 7 days additional time for the Board to receive the opponent’s representations.  In circumstances where an opponent has sent their representations by Royal Mail but it is not delivered to us and we decide to grant civil legal aid, we can reconsider our decision and then take their representations into account.

Contact details
During the postal dispute, if you have any queries about information you expected to receive, please contact us by telephone, fax or email.  You may also wish to fax applications to us for consideration.  Below are some useful numbers – a full list is available on this page of our website.

During the postal dispute we will provide any updates on postal arrangements for both the legal profession and the public on our website www.slab.org.uk