Legal Aid Agency’s Specialist Quality Mark (SQM)

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). It works with providers of legal services to ensure fair, prompt and effective access to civil and criminal legal aid and advice in England and Wales. LAA would like to engage the service of a provider to administer its Specialist Quality Mark (SQM) scheme. The SQM is the organisational quality standard owned by the LAA but delivered under licence and services delivered under contract will be directly chargeable from legal services providers. The purpose of the SQM is to ensure providers of legal services are well managed, provide good levels of client care and have appropriate systems in place to ensure delivery of good quality advice. Compliance with the SQM, or the Law Society’s equivalent standard Lexcel, is a requirement for legal services providers that have, or are seeking to have, a contract with the LAA. The service, which involves auditing and assessing legal services providers who apply for SQM accreditation, will be delivered across England and Wales. We anticipate that services under contract are likely to be required for a maximum of 5 years from 1 April 2022. To register to attend an on-line market engagement session, interested organisations should email civil.tenders@justice.gov.uk by no later than 7 July 2021. Full detail of the procurement process will be detailed in the invitation to tender.