Electronic bills in Court of Protection cases – Pilot in the Senior Courts Costs Office

Court of Protection

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NB: Updated August 2023

From 1 November 2022 until 28 April 2023, professional deputies appointed by the Court of Protection, their legal representatives and other legal professionals involved in Court of Protection cases, may file their bills in respect of general management and other applications where the relevant authority has been obtained from the Court of Protection in electronic spreadsheet form.

The bill must follow the approved template (attached below) and must be filed using CE File.

This applies to new proceedings and also to existing matters which have a CE File reference number. Legal aid bills, bills with a legal aid element, and bills for work done in relation to applications to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority may not be filed in electronic form in this pilot. When filing an electronic bill, please use the options beginning “COP-E”. The assessed bills will be returned by the court by electronic means only.

The new electronic bill was devised by a working group chaired by Costs Judge Colum Leonard and I am very grateful to them for their hard work. The bill was the subject of focused consultation between 1 February and 3 May 2022, following which some adjustments were made.

If the pilot is successful, it is hoped that use of the electronic bill will be permitted after it ends.

Attached below are three versions of the spreadsheet bill:

  • A template with no data added. This is the form to be used under the pilot.
  • A version with “example data” added, illustrating how the bill works.
  • A version with “example data” added, illustrating a provisionally assessed bill.

Also attached is a PDF version of the bill (the form in which hard copies would be served, if required) and Guidance Notes on completing the bill.

Andrew Gordon-Saker
Senior Costs Judge


Update – Version 2 of the bill

Following the successful completion of the pilot, professional deputies appointed by the Court of Protection, their legal representatives and other legal professionals involved in Court of Protection cases, may file their bills in respect of general management and other applications where the relevant authority has been obtained from the Court of Protection, in electronic spreadsheet form using the approved template.

This applies to new proceedings and also to existing matters which have a CE File reference number. Legal aid bills, bills with a legal aid element, and bills for work done in relation to applications to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority may not be filed in electronic form. When filing an electronic bill, please use the options beginning “COP-E”. The assessed bills will be returned by the court by electronic means only.

The bill and guidance notes have been revised in the light of experience gained during the pilot. Please use version 2 of the bill (July 2023). It is essential that bills follow the template and guidance notes in force at the time, as any which do not will be rejected.

We strongly encourage legal representatives to file their documents in support of the bill (correspondence, attendance notes, orders and applications) electronically (as a single pdf with a chronological index showing the dates of the documents) via the Document Upload Centre. Requests for a link to upload files should be sent to: scco@justice.gov.uk

Update – Version 2.1

Following the publication of COP-E Bill version 2.0, a minor error was detected in the filtering functions on the summary sheets and print detail sheet where information from the ‘example data’ COP-E Bill was still visible in the filter dropdowns. This does not affect the workability of version 2.0 and the SCCO will continue to accept bills in this format. This error has been corrected in version 2.1 and, from 6 November 2023, only bills in versions 2.0 and 2.1 will be accepted.