Provision that they generally happen by telephone or in writing will be taken out in October
The provision at CPR 3.16(2) that says costs management conferences should be conducted by telephone or in writing where practicable is to be removed.
Newly published minutes of the March meeting of the Civil Procedure Rule Committee (CPRC) said that Master Dagnall from the lacuna sub-committee had presented the matter and explained that this was viewed as “unduly restrictive, outdated, and inconsistent with current judicial practice”.
The CPRC heard that the senior master had been consulted and was content with removing the rule, while also questioning whether CPR 3.16(1) might also be taken out.
This simply says: “Any hearing which is convened solely for the purpose of costs management (for example, to approve a revised budget) is referred to as a ‘costs management conference’.”
The sub-committee agreed that “there seems to be little (if any) other reference to ‘costs management conference’ in the CPR and if it is desirable to retain the expression, CPR 3.16(1) or a variation could be relocated to the definitions section in CPR 2.3(1)’”.
The CPRC decided to delete CPR 3.16(2) in the October update, without any further consultation, but leave CPR 3.16(1) in place, “because there is an interaction currently with the costs budgeting pilot PDs and a risk of unintended consequences”.
If it was agreed in principle to delete CPR 3.16(1) in future, “consultation would likely be required”.
Separately, the CPRC considered the interplay between parts 36 and 45 in ex-road traffic accident protocol cases, following a referral by Lord Justice Miles.
He gave the unanimous ruling in Attersley v UK Insurance [2026] EWCA Civ 217, where the court held that a claimant who made a late acceptance of a part 36 offer in a personal injury claim which had exited the RTA portal and been allocated to the multi-track could only recover fixed fees.
At the end of the decision, Miles LJ said it was unnecessary for the purposes of the appeal to decide how the CPR would operate in a case where a part 36 offer was made in an ex-protocol case but after the allocation of the case to the multi-track, or before allocation but the relevant period expired afterwards.
But he suggested the CPRC consider these scenarios, “as the existing rules do not yield entirely straightforward answers and they would benefit from clarification”.
He added: “Other issues might arise in the case where on the date of the offer the case had not been allocated, but allocation to the multi-track happened during the relevant period. Again, the rules committee might wish to consider whether and if so how the rules might be clarified to cover such a scenario.”
The CPRC decided to refer the matter to the lacuna sub-committee in the first instance.