Central Bedfordshire names LGSS Law as preferred bidder for shared service

Central Bedfordshire Council has named social enterprise law firm LGSS Law as its preferred bidder for the establishment of a shared legal service.

A report prepared for a meeting of Central Bedfordshire’s Executive yesterday (12 January) said the local authority had three key requirements for any deal:

• It should make cashable savings. A target of at least £240,000 from the base budget had been set and was recommended in the council’s draft budget for 2016/17;
• The quality of the legal advice and service must be maintained or improved. Bidders were asked to make proposals about how this would be guaranteed, “taking into account the council’s current legal service, and ensuring no diminution for example of the availability of planning lawyers or advocacy skills”; and
• Current employees must have protection of terms and conditions and if possible improved employee welfare and terms.

LGSS Law saw off two rival bidders for the opportunity to agree heads of terms with Central Bedfordshire.

All three bidders were within 1.5 hours travel of the building where Central Bedfordshire’s legal team is based. Longer travel time was deemed by the council to be “unacceptable and impractical”.

The weighting given to all of the criteria was price (40%), quality (40%) and staff welfare (20%).

A deal, if it goes ahead, will see Central Bedfordshire employees transfer to LGSS Law, taking its total staffing to around 140.

According to the report for the Executive, Central Bedfordshire’s legal services arm has 39 employees (34.52fte) across three teams: People; Commercial Services; and Business Support. These teams are further sub-divided into nine teams based on functional areas.

In its budget for 2015/15 Central Bedfordshire projected the annual cost of the in-house legal team to be £2.73m.

Quentin Baker, Executive Director of LGSS Law, said: “The team at LGSS Law Ltd are delighted to have been selected by Central Bedfordshire Council as their chosen partner for providing a shared legal service for their in-house teams.

“The CBC legal team is a great team and highly regarded by its clients. Merging the teams in this way will create a significant provider of legal services to clients within the public and not for profit sectors and will further establish LGSS Law Ltd as the leading publicly owned social enterprise law firm.”

Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire County Councils set up LGSS, of which LGSS Law is a part, as a shared service in October 2010.

A deal to provide a range of services to Northampton Borough Council was subsequently struck in May 2013, which saw that authority’s legal team join LGSS Law.

Last April LGSS Law became an alternative business structure after it secured a licence from the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Central Bedfordshire’s Executive was told at its meeting yesterday – before it went into private session for reasons of commercial confidentiality to discuss the three bids – that a whistle-blowing procedure had commenced following a direct approach (by an unnamed person or persons) to the National Audit Office.

Commenting on this development, Central Bedfordshire chief executive Richard Carr told Local Government Lawyer: “We were yesterday advised that a public interest enquiry has been initiated under the whistle-blowing procedures of the National Audit Office.
 
“As a publicly accountable organisation, we are absolutely committed to transparency and will be happy to share the detail of the process we have undertaken with the auditors who are looking into this enquiry.”

Carr had earlier told the meeting of the Executive: “I don’t have the full details of the specific issues that have been raised but from the brief discussion I had with our external auditors yesterday I have to say I think there are some aspects of the points that were raised that reflect a not full understanding of the process the council has been through and I would be confident that any issues, any questions that are raised are ones that we are in a position to answer.”

Also speaking at the meeting, Cllr Richard Wenham, Executive Member for Corporate Resources for Central Bedfordshire, said three high quality bids had been received.

He added that the council’s scrutiny committee would monitor any deal’s implementation and savings in detail over the course of the next year, noting particularly the awarding criteria.

Central Bedfordshire decided to review its approach to legal services after its Head of Legal and Democratic Services and Monitoring Officer, Melanie Clay, left in the summer of 2015 to become Corporate Director for Law, Probity and Governance at Tower Hamlets Council.