Law: Counsel for the council?: Sharon Wallach investigates the mixed bag of changes that may face solicitors working in local government

THE PAST 20 years have seen a 30 per cent increase in the number of lawyers in local government in England and Wales. Some 2,300 solicitors now work for councils, about 4 per cent of the total. The rise reflects an increased workload and widened areas of expertise.

Now the sector is facing change on two fronts, with pressure growing for competitive tendering and local government lawyers prominent in the debate over whether solicitors should have the right to appear as advocates in the higher courts.

Paul Thomas, deputy county secretary and solicitor for Buckinghamshire County Council, says: 'Local authorities have a wide range of functions from which the legal work follows.' These include education, social services, highways and environmental health, as well as police issues where local authorities are also police authorities. 'Local authorities are major employers,' says Mr Thomas, 'so there is employment and personnel work, too, and advice on policy.'

Mr Thomas chairs the Local Government Group (LGG) of the Law Society, whose council this week rejected a suggestion from the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee that the society limit its application for extended rights of audience to solicitors in private practice. 'The Law Society has been immensely supportive in standing firm on the principle of one profession,' says Mr Thomas.

The Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee argued that employed solicitors - those working in commerce and industry as well as local government - might lack the necessary detachment and impartiality required of advocates in the higher courts; neither would they appear often enough to maintain the necessary skills, it said.

Recruits to local government work have been attracted by the variety of work and the public service role, far removed from what some see as the overriding profit motive of private practice. However, the sector has been having to adopt a business culture as competitive tendering looms. Some local government work is already contracted out to private practice: for instance, if specialist services are required or if the in-house workload is too heavy. But if the Government has its way, all legal services will become subject to competitive tendering.

With this in mind, the LGG has formed a working party with the chief officers' societies (the Association of District Secretaries and the Society of County Secretaries) to investigate the whole area of practice development. Chris Robinson, a former chairman of the LGG and former county secretary and solicitor of Surrey County Council, is a member of the working party. He says: 'Four or five years ago, we recognised that life was changing, whether we liked it or not, and that we would have to re-educate ourselves to keep up. We saw a need to give and formulate advice on the way we run our practices, particularly if the Government does introduce proposals for compulsory competitive tendering.'

The joint working party has produced a series of reports on the entire field of practice management, from time-recording systems and business accounts to service level agreements, the terms by which legal services are provided to other local authority departments. Another report, due before the end of the year, will examine competition and quality issues.

Mr Robinson also helped to research a report last year by the Audit Commission that surveyed the country's local authorities. 'At the time a large number already had, or were about to install, time-recording and costing systems,' he says. 'Rather fewer had made progress on service level agreements or practice accounts, although that is changing rapidly. Authorities seem rather slow to act, but they now seem to be making good use of the Audit Commission's and the working party's reports, adapting them to suit their own needs.'

Local government lawyers are concerned about compulsory competitive tendering, but Mr Robinson says: 'I don't think they have a lot to worry about. All it does for the most part

is provide for a competitive quality service. What is particularly worrying to anyone in local government is that you have only one client, so if you lose the contract, you lose your job. I don't believe that private practice is sufficiently geared up at the moment to cope properly with anything other than the routine services it provides to private clients.

'Any private practice that wants to build up local government work would have to take on local government solicitors to do it. So you would end up with the same people doing the same law, albeit in a different environment.'

This would not please those who chose public service rather than the private sector, but Mr Robinson says: 'My answer to those people would be that things are changing anyway in local government. Legal departments are becoming business units and we will all have to accept the business culture that goes with it.'

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