Kent and Essex legal teams win places on new 'outer London' consortium panel

The legal teams of Kent and Essex County Councils have won places on a new 26-strong solicitors panel put together by a consortium of outer London boroughs, the Corporation of London and five district councils in Kent.

The consortium, which was led by the London Borough of Bromley, comprises the London boroughs of Barnet, Bexley, Bromley, Havering, Hillingdon, Merton, Redbridge and Sutton and Kent second tier councils Dartford, Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells, Swale and Thanet.

The panel – which went live this week - will be in place for a minimum of four years, with an option to extend for a further three. The consortium has negotiated discounted rates with the panel firms, with further discounts in return for providing a certain volume of work across a wide range of areas. In addition, panel firms will provide 'added-value' services, such as training, to consortium members.

The full panel is:

  • ASB Law
  • Ashfords
  • Beachcroft
  • Bevan Brittan
  • Burges Salmon
  • Clarke Willmott
  • Cobbetts
  • Creighton & Partners
  • DLA Piper
  • DMH Stallard
  • Davies Arnold Cooper
  • Davitt Jones Bould
  • Dickinson Dees
  • Essex County Council
  • Freeth Cartwright LLP
  • HBJ Gateley Wareing
  • Hodge Jones & Allen, Solicitors
  • Kent County Council
  • Mills & Reeve
  • Paris Smith
  • Pinsent Masons
  • Shoosmiths
  • Trowers & Hamlins
  • Walker Morris
  • Weightmans
  • Wragge & Co.

Mark Bowen, Director of Legal, Democratic & Customer Services at Bromley, said that the 26 firms and legal departments on the panel were chosen on a combination of quality of work, price, range of work and overall quality of the tender. More than 80 firms originally responded to the consortium's request for proposal.

Despite the relative geographical diversity of the consortium, as outer London boroughs with relatively small legal teams, they had a lot of issues and challenges in common, Bowen said. The consortium would work together to share knowledge and experience, but there were no plans for greater integration of the legal departments involved.

“It creates a platform for building trust between the consortium members and for some joint working,” he said. “There's not a great deal of  spare capacity. That may build up gently among consortium members, although some members are looking at joint working with their neighbours independently of this.”

Bowen added that another four or five authorities may join the consortium in the near future and that it could ultimately become up to 20-strong in order to provide the panel with sufficient volume of work. Organisations able to give the panel a flow of legal work would usually be admitted free although authorities or other public bodies who could not will be required to pay a fee to join.

“We have spent a lot of time on this, and there was a question of whether other people could come in on the back of that,” Bowen said. “But the economic climate when we started the process was very different; external legal spend has reduced and we need a bigger consortium to guarantee that we benefit from the discounts and added value. If people have a flow of external legal spend, then they can join the consortium for free; otherwise they will need to pay a joining fee.”