BUDGET AND PERFORMANCE - SCRUTINY COMMITTEE 3rd September 2007 Agenda Item: 5

Legal & Democratic Services Presentation by Nigel Roberts, Director of Law & Administration (and Monitoring Officer)

How are Legal & Democratic Services structured? Legal & Democratic Services, part of the Business Management Directorate, provides support to the Council corporately, members (individually and collectively) and service directorates in order to facilitate lawfulness and good administration in everything that the Council does in the discharge of its functions. The role of the Director of Law & Administration as Monitoring Officer to the Council is integral to this aim. Staff in Legal Services work to protect and assert the rights, interests and well being of the Council and the people of Gloucestershire, and provide high quality professional legal services to support the implementation of the Council’s strategic objectives.

The Democratic Services unit provides a service to maintain effective arrangements for the political management of the Council.

Both arms of the service support the Monitoring Officer in the promotion and maintenance of high standards of corporate governance. By this, we mean lawful decision-making, constitutional propriety, high ethical standards, open and transparent government and democratic engagement.

The Monitoring Officer This is a very specific statutory role, which gives the Monitoring Officer a personal duty to ensure that in everything the Council does, it acts within the law and with good administration. Everyone throughout the Council has a role to play in helping with this duty, because acting lawfully and properly is something that concerns us all. The corporate governance of the authority falls within the ambit of this role.

Legal Services

Legal Services is split into five teams, four of them related to areas of law and the fifth being support services. Nigel Roberts is the Director of Law & Administration (and Monitoring Officer). The senior management of the service is completed by two Assistant Directors (Christine Wray and Samantha Wood on secondment), who each manage two of the service teams and act as deputy monitoring officers. The teams are –

1

Adult Services, Employment and Litigation (Team Manager Alan Timbrell)

This team covers a very broad legal spectrum and provides support to a diverse client group. Work areas include employment law and general civil and criminal litigation advice to all Council client departments, including the Fire & Rescue Service. Advice to the Community & Adult Care directorate and to the Gloucestershire Partnership NHS Trust focuses on community care and mental health law. Debt recovery is also undertaken within this team, together with criminal litigation on behalf of the Trading Standards department. Children's Services (Team Manager Kelly Forrest)

The role of the Children’s Services team is to provide high quality legal support, advice and representation in the areas of child care law (predominately child protection, children in need and adoption) and education law. Support is also provided to the Youth Offending Service. Commercial Services (Team Manager Tim Evans)

The work of this team falls into two broad areas. First, contracts, to include advice in connection with the procurement of the full range of goods and services on the part of all Council directorates. We also advise on the implications of contractual terms and conditions, plus the effect on contracts of data protection, intellectual property rights and local authority powers. The team also advises on (and drafts) partnering agreements with organisations entering into joint working arrangements with the Council, such as health bodies under section 31 of the Health Act 1999. Then secondly, there is land & property work, to include acting for the Council on property transactions. The team represents the Council in the granting or taking of leases, licenses and the creation of other interests in land, together with the registration of legal charges to protect and recover sums due to the Council, along with other property related issues that affect the Council.

Environmental Services (Team Manager Gillian Parkinson)

The majority of our work falls to three main areas. The first of these is development agreements, where the team advises on draft agreements and secures appropriate developer contributions (“section 106 agreements”) to infrastructure such as transportation, education, and libraries. This ensures that new development in the county bears its fair share of responsibility for infrastructure issues and the consequence can be the delivery of many millions of pounds’ worth of contributions. Additionally, we conclude agreements to ensure that estate roads on new developments are constructed to standard and can be adopted by the Highway Authority (“section 38 agreements”). The second main area of work is planning, where the team advises on the minerals and waste aspects of planning law and development control, as part of which we attend planning committee, to provide advice to officers and members. Additionally, we deal with planning enforcement, including the issue of appropriate notices and also input to

2

prosecutions. The final area relates to highways, commons and policy relating to travellers, where the team provides advice on all manner of legal issues in relation to highways and public rights of way, including the processing of numerous types of order, plus advice to the Commons and Rights of Way committee and to the Traffic Regulation committee. Commons registration is a statutory function for which the team has sole responsibility in providing a direct service to the public. Additionally, advice on traveller policy is provided to all directorates within the council.

Support Services

The function of this team is to manage ‘Timeframe’ (the time recording system for Legal Services) and also the budget and general finances of the service, as well as monitoring and administering departmental purchase ordering, word processing, filing and photocopying, plus the delivery of general clerical and organisational assistance to the legal teams.

Democratic Services (Manager Julie Hill)

The Democratic Services unit (“DSU”) is the key administrative function supporting elected members in the application of the Council’s constitution in terms of effective, responsible, responsive and transparent decision-making and democratic representation. As well as servicing formal meetings (including County Council, Cabinet and Overview & Scrutiny Committees), DSU also supports the Chair of Council in her charity work, ceremonial and civic duties and provides support to the County’s Lord Lieutenant. Other activities include co-ordinating County Council elections and post-election arrangements, providing the administration for the annual “medals of courage” awards and servicing school admission and exclusions panels. DSU's work affects all aspects of the Authority, as it is the focal point for the dissemination of the results of the decision making process.

It is also responsible for the administration of:

• Personnel Appeals • Standards Committee • Constitution Committee • Appointments Committee • Independent Remuneration Panel • Gloucestershire Schools Organisation Committee

The unit is split into three teams – Cabinet, Scrutiny and Regulatory.

3

What is the Level of In-house Legal Expertise? Each of the legal teams is structured on the basis that there is a full range of expertise and experience in the specific discipline covered by that team, from legal assistant to team manager. The overriding ethos of the service is to ensure that we take every opportunity to develop the in-house skill base, so as to maximise the amount of work that we do in-house and minimise reliance upon external lawyers. This is not always possible. Relevant factors are – ٠ the breadth and complexity of law generally and local government law

and administration in particular, both of which are hugely diverse. It would be neither economically viable nor practicable to have lawyers in house to cover every minutia of legal practice, although in practice, there is very little that we are unable to cover in terms of expertise and experience

٠ as a sub-set of this, the rules of engagement for PFI project work do

not permit the Council to rely solely on in-house legal support, where we are required to use the advice and implementation framework of the 4Ps

٠ the difficulty of recruitment. For some years, it has been increasingly

difficult to attract lawyers into front line local government legal practice. It is becoming harder to compete with the attractions of private practice, particularly in monetary terms, although we have sought to counter this effect by actively promoting the Council’s People Strategy within legal recruitment (see below).

Last year saw a significant reduction in the use (and therefore cost) of external support and this approach continues to be a feature of service provision. As a matter of policy we invest in the training and development of every lawyer, assistant and trainee in the service, not only to increase in-house capacity, but also as an non-monetary incentive for lawyers to remain at the County Council. What Arrangements Exist for Purchasing External Legal Support? The overriding principle is that when it comes to using external legal advice, we try only do so if very specialist advice is needed that we don’t have in-house or if we don't have the capacity to run large scale projects, which tend to be resource-intensive and involve complex advice that is outside mainstream local government law. The most likely instances of external legal support are - ٠ specialist advocacy skills, particularly in the higher courts and in

employment tribunals, although there is an active policy of increasing the amount of advocacy provided in-house. And in certain circumstances, it is actually cheaper to instruct local barristers in say,

4

Bristol, for court hearings there, rather than to have in-house lawyers spending a considerable amount of time “on the road”

٠ large-scale and complex commercial projects, although again, we are

actively increasing the amount of work undertaken in-house in this area viz. the secondment of David Rees (below)

How Does the County Council Pay for its Legal Service? We operate a mixed economy of hard and soft charging. The vast majority of client work is hard charged, through the raising of monthly invoices detailing the nature and cost of work that has been done. Each year, as part of budgetary preparation and management, clients then make provision within their budgets for these payments. The work that is soft charged covers matters that can be said to generically relate to the corporate and democratic core of the organisation, such as general corporate governance. Much of the Monitoring Officer work falls within this definition. Legal Services administers and monitors all work that is undertaken by external lawyers (both for quality control and budget management purposes), with those external charges being the responsibility of client departments. A schedule of charging rates for the Council’s in-house team is attached as Appendix 1. As a matter of irrefutable fact, these rates are very considerably cheaper than those offered by private practice. They are set on the basis that the single objective is to cover costs and overheads, there being no element of profit. And considerable added value comes from having experienced lawyers within the organisation itself who understand the key features of public administration and culture. The Issue of Delay From time to time, it is sadly inevitable that there will be delays in the conduct of any particular matter. This might result from – ٠ the complexity of an issue; ٠ its contentious nature; ٠ the number of parties external to the Council, along with other Council

departments, that are involved; ٠ factors affecting or which are the responsibility of those parties; ٠ workloads at any given time; ٠ limitations on resources due to illness or recruitment; or ٠ a combination of some or all of these factors. That said, managers in Legal Services are not aware of any real delays in the provision of advice and support, either generic or specific. All of our services are provided under the terms of service level agreements with client departments and we always keep clients fully informed. At regular client liaison meetings, the opportunity exists for a frank exchange of views with clients on any matters of concern.

5

The Practical Application of the Council’s People Strategy, Using Legal Services as a Case Study Key Themes of the Strategy, Incorporating Levers and Actions (both taken and planned) for Legal Services a) Develop flexible and fluid organisation structures and individual roles (including addressing any barriers to working across existing Council structures) Actions taken – Fostering and facilitating team and project working: ٠ annual Legal Services “away days” to focus on targets, key projects in

the business plan, practice strategy and aligning the service with the Council’s corporate aims

٠ two joint summits with CYPD over the last twelve months for respective

team members to discuss and plan a cross-directorate joined-up approach to service delivery

Working across Council structures: ٠ the secondment of David Rees to the Environment Directorate ٠ under the auspices of the countywide Joint Improvement Board

(representing the top two tiers of local government), the heads of service at the County and five District/Borough/City Councils are working on a feasibility study to examine options for greater co-operation and joining-up of services throughout the county

Quick Development Programmes have been developed, which allow more flexibility in appointment to posts within Legal Services to match people’s knowledge levels and skills. This reflects the more flexible approach to job descriptions outlined in the People Strategy. We have also created Trainee Solicitor and Trainee Lawyer positions to grow and develop a source of skills and knowledge for the future and to enhance in-house capacity. b) Making sure the Council has Quality leaders As part of a commitment to ensuring that all managers have access to leadership development, the existing Assistant Directors and the four Team Managers have or are participating in the Council’s Leadership and Management Development Programme. And people taking up posts new to the County Council or those in positions where they are new to management are participating in manager induction courses run by the People Development Team.

6

c) Continuously developing our people for the new organisation and culture Legal Services has a good track record in developing the knowledge and skills of staff: ٠ training and development needs are regularly reviewed at monthly

management team meetings ٠ the PAR process is routinely observed and training needs are

assessed on an individual and whole-team basis ٠ individual postholders are supported (in terms of payment of course

fees and time out of the office) to acquire legal executive and solicitor qualifications

d) Rewarding the behaviours we want to encourage ٠ Legal Services has made use of the Council’s bonus scheme

introduced as part of the salary progression scheme to recognise those who have made an exceptional contribution

٠ we have also put into practice the acquisition of knowledge and skills

through participation in training activities to encourage and motivate staff

٠ staff are encouraged staff to participate in working groups and focus

groups to increase learning and prepare for future opportunities ٠ the “market rate supplement policy” is available (subject to sufficient

finance being available within budgets) to address any future recruitment needs where the level of remuneration might be an issue (in comparison with the market place)

٠ we have made use of “golden hellos” when recruiting to two team

manager posts in the past, to ensure we have been able to attract applications from those with right level of expertise, skills and experience. We will consider doing so again if future recruitment at that level necessary

٠ we actively use the Council’s policy to assist staff in balancing family

and domestic commitments with the needs of the service through flexible working arrangements

e) Tackling Under-performance ٠ the management team have had briefings on managing attendance

and difficult sickness absence cases

7

٠ attendance and sickness statistics are monitored monthly and any

corrective action is taken ٠ staff on long-term sick leave due to serious operations and/or medical

conditions have been supported in a phased return to work through early referral to the OHU and the availability of subsequent support and advice

٠ staff are regularly made aware of the management team’s approach to

these issues via clear briefings, so that all are aware of the standards that are expected

٠ the impact of the probation period is given due weight and managers

discuss with staff any issues of concern that may arise, as well as re-enforcing good practice by focusing on work that is performed well. Concerns have been addressed in respect of staff who have fallen short of the required standard and employment has been terminated on rare occasions when necessary

٠ team managers are encouraged to address any specific cases with

individuals as soon as they are identified to minimise the risk of them becoming longer-term issues.

f) Active communication with our people ٠ both the service management team and teams themselves meet on a

monthly basis ٠ individual 1-2-1 supervision sessions routinely take place to address

caseloads and personal concerns ٠ PARs and reviews are undertaken ٠ staff participate in cross-council working groups General – the Question of Capacity Planning The management team actively considers workforce-planning issues through consideration of: ٠ external factors, such as legislative changes, national government and

European initiatives, labour market information (for example data relating to remuneration within the private legal sector as compared to the public sector) and demographic changes (for example data relating to the declining number of young people, or diversity issues)

٠ service scenarios, such as corporate changes and priorities over the short, medium and long term, service trends, future service delivery needs, bespoke projects (large and small) and new objectives and targets

8

٠ trends, such as anticipated, specialist and new skills, any skills

becoming obsolete, turnover figures, partnership working issues, financial pressures, market trends and the supply of legal professionals (and quasi-legal staff) at national level.

Nigel Roberts Director of Law & Administration August 2007

9

APPENDIX 1

CHARGING RATES FOR THE COUNCIL’S IN-HOUSE LEGAL TEAM

Post title Hourly Charge

Out Rate Director of Law and Administration £84.00 Assistant Head of Legal and Democratic Services £84.00 Team Leader (Lawyer) £65.50 Senior Lawyer £59.50 Lawyer Advocate £48.00 Lawyer £36.00 Trainee Solicitor £31.00 Trainee Legal Executive £31.00 Legal Assistant £24.00

10