Legal Aid Supervisor and Training Requirements: The 2024 Contract and the SQM Compared

Legal aid providers carry two sets of people requirements at once: the supervisor and supervision rules in the contract specification, and the training and appraisal requirements in the quality standard the contract obliges them to hold. They are written by the same organisation and they do not say the same thing.

This guide works through both, with paragraph and requirement numbers, and flags where they conflict. It is written from the 2024 Standard Civil Contract Specification: General Rules (May 2025) and the Specialist Quality Mark Standard version 3 (October 2022).

The supervisor requirement, and why it is a fundamental breach

Paragraph 2.10 is the gateway. To receive or maintain a Schedule Authorisation in any category you must have at least one full-time, or full-time equivalent, Supervisor — full-time equivalent being 35 hours a week excluding breaks. The Supervisor must be a sole principal, an employee, or a director, partner or member, and must be accessible to those they supervise during working hours.

If that requirement is not met, "your right to undertake work in the relevant Category will cease", and any breach of paragraph 2.10 "shall be a Fundamental Breach". There is also a direct financial consequence: under paragraph 4.22 you may only claim the category-specific hourly rate if you have a Supervisor in that category.

Paragraph 2.11 sets four conditions a Supervisor must satisfy: the Case Involvement Standard, the Supervision Standards, the Legal Competence Standard in the Category Specific Rules, and the employment status in 2.10(b). Paragraph 2.12 is unforgiving about what happens when one lapses — the provider must notify the LAA and the person "must immediately cease acting as a Supervisor".

The 350-hour Case Involvement Standard, and its internal caps

Paragraph 2.14 requires a minimum of 350 hours in each of the last three years. What most providers miss is that the 350 is not a free-form total. It carries internal allowances:

• Direct personal casework — minimum 235 hours, of which direct documented supervision cannot exceed 120
• File review, including face-to-face — maximum 60 hours
• External training delivery — maximum 115 hours
• Documented research and publications — maximum 115 hours
• Other supervision — maximum 115 hours

So a supervisor who has moved largely into management cannot reach the standard on supervision and training hours alone: 235 hours of actual casework is the floor. Part-time supervisors need 1,050 hours over five years, pro rata (paragraph 2.16).

The ratio: one supervisor to four caseworkers

Paragraph 2.26 is explicit and frequently overlooked. In each category where you hold Schedule Authorisation you must "maintain a ratio of at least one full time equivalent Supervisor for every four full time equivalent Caseworkers", and those supervisors "must actively supervise such Caseworkers". Where the Category Specific Rules allow a single part-time supervisor instead, that supervisor may not supervise more than two full-time equivalent caseworkers.

Who counts as a Caseworker matters to that sum. Under paragraph 2.27 a Caseworker is an employee or compliant agent who regularly undertakes civil legal advice work in the category — and, if unqualified, must do a minimum of 12 hours advice work each week in that category — and who has a specific caseload allocated and is responsible for progressing those cases. Paragraph 2.28 excludes people doing only administration or only triage.

A sourcing note for anyone checking this themselves: paragraph 2.27 opens by referring to "Paragraph 2.25", where 2.26 appears to be intended. The cross-reference is printed that way in the specification.

What supervision has to consist of

Paragraph 2.18 requires all Contract Work to be supervised by a Supervisor in the relevant category. Paragraph 2.20 requires everyone performing Contract Work to hold a professional legal qualification or, where one is not required, to perform a minimum of 12 hours' work each week in the relevant category.

Paragraph 2.21 then requires arrangements so each Supervisor can do the job effectively, "including but not limited to" designating time to supervise each Caseworker, attending each office where the provider determines it is required, and ensuring the level of supervision reflects the individual Caseworker's skills, knowledge and experience.

File reviews. Paragraph 2.22 requires each Supervisor to conduct file reviews for each Caseworker they supervise, with the number reflecting that individual's skills, knowledge and experience, and requires the Supervisor to record the outcome together with details of any corrective action.

Note what is absent: the specification sets no fixed file review frequency, and no requirement for independent or peer review. The frequency is a judgement the provider must be able to justify by reference to the individual, which is harder to evidence than a fixed number would be, not easier.

Paragraph 2.23 adds that where a Caseworker works somewhere other than their Supervisor's base, the Supervisor must conduct face-to-face supervision with both parties physically present where the provider determines that is required.

When a supervisor is away: the six-week rule

Paragraph 2.24 allows, for up to six weeks, either nominating a Caseworker who does not meet all the supervisor requirements, or nominating an external Supervisor.

Beyond that, paragraph 2.25 requires you to inform your Contract Manager immediately, who decides at their reasonable discretion what you must do — which may include extending the internal arrangement, formalising external supervision, requiring a new employed Supervisor within a specified period, or applying a Sanction.

The Quality Mark says the same six weeks from a different angle: delegation to a temporary supervisor "must not extend beyond six weeks continuously, without the authority of the LAA", a performance appraisal must be carried out within 28 calendar days if cover extends beyond ten consecutive working days, and the LAA must be told within 28 calendar days when a supervisor leaves or changes.

The quality standard: SQM or Lexcel

If you hold a legal aid contract you must hold either the Specialist Quality Mark, which the LAA owns, or the Law Society's Lexcel. One timing change is worth knowing: the SQM accreditation period increased from three years to five years from 1 October 2025, triggered by the date of the Pre- or Post-Quality Mark Audit.

The specification itself does not name SQM or Lexcel; paragraph 2.4(a) ties the right to do Contract Work to "holding the Quality Standard set out in your Contract for Signature".

The training requirements are in the SQM, not the contract

This is the structural point. The specification contains no general duty to train staff — no induction requirement, no CPD obligation, no training plan or training record requirement. The only training references are the deputy's training and development plan (2.13), supervisory skills training (2.19(b)) and external training delivery counting toward hours (2.14(c)).

The training obligations live in the Quality Mark, and they are specific:

• D2.1 Induction — must begin within two months of joining unless justifiable reasons are recorded, covering the organisation's aims and structure, the role, equality and diversity, quality, customer care and complaints policies, office procedures, and terms, welfare and safety. Records of content and dates must be kept for each individual
• D2.2 Appraisal — at least annually, for all staff including partners, managers and external supervisors, other than with the auditor's agreement. Records must detail existing and future objectives and be signed by both parties
• D2.3 Training and development plans — individual plans, reviewed at least annually with the review recorded, drawing needs from appraisals, file reviews, supervisory sessions and service reviews. Each must state the aim, the method and the timescale
• D2.4 Training records — all training recorded, including dates of external and in-house courses attended or given, course titles, provider names, and hours undertaken
• D5.1 Caseworker training — a minimum of six hours in each 12-month period per casework member of staff, of which 50% must relate directly to the relevant category, rising to 100% for crime caseworkers. Sessions must last at least 30 minutes, courses over an hour need supporting material, and non-interactive training needs a documented discussion with the supervisor. Absence over three months suspends it, and it does not cover supervisors
• D3.3 Supervisors' legal training — a minimum of six hours a year of technical legal knowledge relating directly to the area supervised, with caps inside the six: attending courses no more than four hours, delivering training no more than three, publications no more than four
• D5.2 — all caseworkers hold a professional legal qualification or do at least 12 hours' casework a week. Former solicitors and barristers count as qualified for a maximum of five years after last practising, and Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme membership is compulsory for work funded by LAA contracts
• D3.4 — external supervisors must not supervise more than three caseworkers, and the auditor expects each to receive around two hours' supervision a week

No retention period is stated anywhere — not in the specification for supervision records, and not in D2.1 to D2.4 or D3.3 for induction, appraisal, training plan or training records. The specification's six-year window in paragraph 1.12 is a period in which the LAA may request evidence, not a retention duration, though in practice it tells you how long to keep things.

The conflict providers need to know about

The two documents disagree on how a supervisor demonstrates supervisory skills.

Specification 2.19 gives two routes: having supervised at least one full-time Caseworker, or equivalent, for at least a year in the previous five-year period; or having completed training covering key supervisory skills in the previous 24 months.

SQM D3.2 gives three: assessment at NVQ Level 3 or higher in supervising; training covering key supervisory skills completed in the 12 months immediately preceding the SQM application; or demonstrable experience as an effective supervisor of at least one full-time member of staff for at least a year in the last five.

The practical consequence is concrete. A supervisor who completed supervisory skills training 13 to 24 months ago satisfies the contract and fails the Quality Mark. The NVQ route exists only in the SQM. And the two measure at different moments — the contract on appointment and whenever the LAA asks, the SQM at the point of application. Both are printed as requirements, and neither document resolves the other.

If you are planning supervisor development, the safe reading is the stricter one: treat supervisory skills training as needing refreshment inside 12 months, not 24.

Audit: what a sample is and how far back it reaches

Under paragraph 4.47 a "Sample" means no fewer than 20 Claims, or all of them if you have submitted fewer than 20 since the last assessment — and findings from that sample may be applied to your other claims for Controlled Work.

Paragraph 4.48 sets the look-back. For Mis-Claiming, any time within two years of submission, extending to six years where an Official Investigation is underway or the LAA has received a report it reasonably considers requires assessment. For Over-Claiming and other claiming issues, back to the last contract compliance audit or 12 months before the sample was requested, whichever is more recent. Paragraph 4.49 limits extrapolation to the relevant group where the sample relates only to a specific group of files or category.

Paragraph 4.44 also lets the LAA act where you have failed to evidence on file that the merits and financial criteria were met, or failed to retain evidence required under the Procedure Regulations — and paragraph 4.45 lets assessment results feed into whether your work becomes subject to quality assessment or further audit.

Three things to check

First, the ratio: count full-time-equivalent caseworkers per category against supervisors and confirm you are at or better than one to four, with part-time supervisors capped at two where that applies.

Second, whether each supervisor's 350 hours genuinely contains 235 hours of direct personal casework, rather than being made up of supervision and training delivery.

Third, your supervisory skills evidence dates, against the 12-month SQM window rather than the contract's 24 months.

The common thread across all of it is a dated, individual training record — the same evidential problem running through the SRA's continuing competence consultation and the CLSB's audited CPD scheme. Structured CPD programmes are useful here only where they produce the aim, method and timescale that SQM D2.3 actually asks for.

Sources and limits: written from the 2024 Standard Civil Contract Specification: General Rules (May 2025 header), the Specialist Quality Mark Standard version 3 (October 2022) and the LAA's quality standards guidance on GOV.UK, read in October 2026. The Category Specific Rules in Sections 7 to 18, which contain the Legal Competence Standard, the Standard Terms including Clause 24, Section E of the SQM and Annex A were not read and will qualify points above. Neither the specification nor the GOV.UK guidance states whether the 2024 contract has been superseded, so confirm the current contract before relying on this. General information about published documents, not legal advice.