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Crime Restoration

Restoration Of Crime Systems 

Access to Crime Apply has now been restored.  

Please note that the use of Crime Apply is mandatory for all Criminal Legal Aid applications from 1 October.  Any application sent in by the contingency process (by e-mail) on or after this date will be rejected.  If you are unable to access Sign in to Legal Aid Services, please contact the Online Support Team (0300 200 2020) or inform your Contract Manager. 

The End of Enhanced Business Continuity Measures for Crime Applications 

The LAA’s enhanced  Business Continuity measures for Crime applications have ended on 30th September 2025. For Crime, this marks the final transition back to our business-as-usual processes.  

As of 00:00, 1st October 2025:

  • Delegated authority for representation order applications in all case types have ended.
  • You will no longer have authority to grant representation in any case type under delegated powers, please take note of this when instructed from 00:00, 1st October 2025 onwards. If you have any questions on a specific circumstance that is not clear, please refer to the guidance on submitting criminal legal aid applications in the first instance
  • Proceeding once instructed under delegated authority after this date from 00:00, 1st October 2025 will be ultra vires and would entitle the LAA to refuse payment of any associated fees. We understand that this return to previous rules will increase your time spent submitting applications in the first instance, but we are ready to support you through this process and answer any questions you may have. 

Crime applications: Claiming for Cases where no MAAT Number has been supplied  

Whilst we understand that you will not have a MAAT number for some cases dealt with under the LAA’s enhanced Business Continuity measures, a note on the file referring to the incident will be sufficient for audit purposes. If you need to submit a CRM7, an explanatory note will equally suffice. As you will not have received a MAAT number for these cases, please use 900900 as a dummy MAAT number when claiming. This is essential to ensure that it is clear that your claim is a contingency claim and allows us to track and monitor these.  

When claiming a Committal for Sentence fixed fee on CCCD, the system requires a 7-digit MAAT number to be used to allow the claim to be submitted.   For these cases only, please use 4900900 when claiming.

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