Legal Aid Civil - Immigration Changes for LEAP Users

11/07/2025
Knowledge

How To

There are changes being introduced to Immigration and Asylum matters in line with the Nationality and Borders Act 2023. These changes will affect the way that users record, and bill for Legal Help and Controlled Work as of 1^st April 2023.

The Immigration Legal Aid consultation outcome can be viewed here.

Previously, Legal Help and Controlled Work claims were billed as one claim. These have now been decoupled and separate claims will now need to be generated for each claim.

Legal Aid Workings

The reporting requirements for CWA are that both claims utilise the same UFN. It is therefore recommended that one matter is utilised. The same UFN being reported for both claims is requirement of the Immigration and Asylum changes being implemented by the Legal Aid Agency for CWA reporting purposes.

The Legal Help time and fee items can be recorded using a new billing stage, Legal Help. Using this billing stage will ensure that these items are excluded from the Controlled Work claim. Once the Legal Help claim has concluded, any further work that is carried out under CLR should be recorded using the billing stage of Controlled Work.

These changes are for new Legal Help matters with a date opened of on or after 1^st April 2023, and existing matters where the date funding granted is on or after 1^st April 2023.

Any existing time, fee and cost recovery items may need to be updated to reflect the correct billing stage that these should be assigned to. This can be done by opening the relevant entries and changing the billing stage accordingly.

Legal Aid Matter Details

To allow for the Controlled Work to be billed at the appropriate fixed fee, a new field has been added to the matter Legal Aid details, Date Funding Granted. This should be completed prior to any invoices being generated.

If the Date Funding Granted is prior to 1^st April 2023, then the escape threshold will be calculated at 3x the fixed fee. Where CLR was granted on or after 1^st April 2023 the escape fee threshold will be calculated at 2x the fixed fee.

New reporting codes for Legal Help and CLR claims after 1^st April 2023 are available within the Matter Type 1 and Matter Type 2 dropdowns on the invoice screen.

The Legal Help claim, and the Controlled Work claim are now reported separately in the new matters starts for the appropriate month when the monthly submission is generated.

Legal Help (LH)

Matter Type 1 Codes

Code	Description	Fixed Fee
IMLB	Immigration Stage 1 (LH) Not including Attendance at Home Office Interview	£234.00
IALB	Asylum Stage 1 (LH) Not including Attendance at Home Office Interview	£413.00

Existing Legal Help Claims

National Referral Mechanism (NRM)

An NRM fee can be claimed on existing Legal Help claims. These should be recorded via the Bolt-On capability and the fee will be included when the Legal Help claim is invoiced. These attracted a fixed fee of £150.00.

NRM’s are included in the monthly submission for reporting via the CWA portal.

Priority Removal Notice (IPRN)

These are costed as a maximum of 7 hours work and are claimed using the codes.

This advice is payable by hourly rates, at the rates set out in Table 7(d) of the Civil Legal Aid (Remuneration) Regulations 2013. Travel and Waiting costs, and fees for interpreters should be claimed in addition to the advice.

Activity	London	Max. 7 Hours	National	Max. 7 Hours
Preparation, Attendance and Advocacy	£51.62	£361.34	£47.30	£331.10
Travel and Waiting Time	£27.27		£26.51
Routine Letters Out and Telephone Calls	£3.96		£3.69

Matter Type 1		Matter Type 2
IAXL	Asylum - (LH) Work Not Subject to GFS	IPRN	Priority Removal Notice
IMXL	Immigration - (LH) Work Not Subject to GFS	IPRN	Priority Removal Notice

On the combination of these codes being selected the field for Follow On Work will be enabled to allow for the reporting to how the matter is proceeding. This is included in the monthly submission for upload to the CWA Portal.

For any other combination selected the Follow On Work field will be disabled and defaulted to N/A.

Controlled Legal Representation (CLR)

Matter Type 1 and 2 Codes

Current Codes

*The following codes were end dated and cannot be used moving forward*	Description These codes can *only* be used for matters opened on/after: 07/10/2020 and on/before: 31/03/2023	*What is the end date of the CLR codes?*
IACC	Asylum – stage 2c (CLR) - This has fixed fees	31/03/2023
IMCC	Immigration – stage 2c (CLR) - This has fixed fees	31/03/2023
IACD	Asylum – Interim CLR rates (hourly rates with additional fee for advocacy services)	31/03/2023
IMCD	Immigration – Interim CLR rates (hourly rates with additional fee for advocacy services)	31/03/2023

New Codes – Only applicable to Controlled Work

Code	Description	Fixed Fee	Start Date
IACE	Asylum – Stage 2d (CLR) The codes can be used with any Matter Type 2 codes. The codes can be used with any Outcome codes. Disbursements are allowable. Stage claims are not permitted. Can be escaped.	£669.00	01/04/2023
IMCE	Immigration – Stage 2d (CLR) The codes can be used with any Matter Type 2 codes. The codes can be used with any Outcome codes. Disbursements are allowable. Stage claims are not permitted. Can be escaped.	£628.00	01/04/2023
IACF	Asylum – Stage 2e (CLR) The codes can be used with any Matter Type 2 codes. The codes can be used with any Outcome codes. Disbursements are allowable. Stage claims are not permitted. Can be escaped.	£1,009.00	01/04/2023
IMCF	Immigration – Stage 2e (CLR) The codes can be used with any Matter Type 2 codes. The codes can be used with any Outcome codes. Disbursements are allowable. Stage claims are not permitted. Can be escaped.	£855.00	01/04/2023

Last Modified Date

11/07/2025 2:04 am

Title

Legal Aid Civil - Immigration Changes for LEAP Users

URL Name

Legal-Aid-Civil-Immigration-Changes

Resolution