It looks as though the new 2018 Legal Aid Civil Contract has reinstated delegated powers so as to enable solicitors to grant Emergency Legal Funding Certificates for homeless clients who need to issue Judicial Review proceedings involving just Section 17 of the Children Act 1989.

I just found this out today after I submitted a non delegated functions application for a Legal Funding Certificate to cover a Judicial Review for a homeless child involving Section 17 of Children Act 1989 and was advised by the case worker that I could have granted the Emergency Legal Funding Certificate myself. When I said that my understanding was that Section 17 was excluded from Judicial Review delegated functions the case worker emailed me the following text which he said was copied from a list instances where solicitors can grant Emergency Legal Funding Certificates under devolved powers.

I asked for a copy of the document which this was taken from but was told that it was just from an internal Legal Aid Agency document which could not be disclosed.
I have done some digging around and have found the same list on the slide below produced by the Legal Aid Agency for Training on the 2018 Civil Contract.

This is page 39. The full set of 43 slides can be found here.
The list looks like an amended version of this older list published in 2017 so that Section 17 now appears where only Section 20 of Children Act 1989 previously appeared at the third bullet point. Here is a link to the actual site. I have included a copy in case the site is replaced soon.

This change is very helpful to people like me who often have to obtain Legal Funding Certificates to cover Judicial Reviews concerning just Section 17 of the Children Act 1989. Not being able to grant Emergency Legal Funding Certificates myself meant that I was delayed in taking urgent action by having to wait for someone at the Legal Aid Agency to consider my application. To be fair the staff at the Legal Aid Agency have usually been very quick to deal with them but it is a problem if work needs to be started at 5:30pm and it is not possible to contact the Legal Aid Agency.
I have not been able to find a specific Legal Aid document other than the training slide which says that delegated powers are available again for this work. If anyone else has found any such documents please send them to me at wflack63@gmail.com. I suggest that people check with their Contract Managers before starting to use delegated powers again so as to be on the safe side.

I would very much appreciate any comments people have about this especially if anyone out there thinks I am wrong and that solicitors using delegated powers for Section 17 Judicial Reviews will still be at risk of not getting paid.