Specialist local authority legal advisers, Freeth Cartwright LLP, ranked 1st for Local Government work by Legal 500 2012 have recently undertaken a survey of local government heads of legal services to find out how the cuts in local government funding are affecting the in-house legal function: how work is dealt with and morale within the teams.
The full set of results can be obtained by clicking on the following link to our website, but key findings of the survey were as follows:
* legal departments are getting smaller whilst the volume of work increases
* as the world about them changes, the role of legal officers has remained broadly the same outsourcing of legal services is still only relatively limited
* Projects and ‘big ticket’ work is still the main area of legal outsourcing and the need to do so has remained broadly constant
* Even in these difficult economic times, it is still difficult to fill vacant posts
* legal panels and consortia are a good thing, as they reduce cost and increase choice
Nathan Holden, Head of Local Authorities with the firm said: “We were very pleased to have been involved in this interesting and useful research exercise. In particular the message it sends, which I think is remarkable, is how local government legal departments, in spite of all of the changes that have taken place and with far fewer resources, have still been able to provide an effective and highly valued service”.
Freeth Cartwright acts for over 100 local authorities throughout the country and are on various consortia panels, which help authorities to make efficiency savings and drive down costs.