b'Local Government Lawyer 19Figure 2: On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being most satisfied), how satisfied are you with theredundancy than they were.following aspects of your employment? Looking at the ratings for satisfaction with specific aspects of their work (FIG 2), the Quality of work 7.5 respondents this year scored, on average, their happiness with work 0.5 higher (out Work-life balance 7.2 of 10) than they did in 2015. However, Ability to inuence how I do my job 6.8 satisfaction with job security jumped from Job security 6.7 an average rating of 5.4 in 2015 to 6.7 Culture and collegiality 6.6 this year, the biggest rise of any of the 12 Pay/pension 6.4 categories in the question.The next biggest risers are career Quality of leadership 6.2 prospects, up by 0.7 (albeit from a low Manageability of workload 6.1 base), the ability to influence how I do my IT and research facilies 5.8 job (up from 6.2 to 6.8), work-life balance Professional development opportunies 5.8 (up from 6.7 to 7.2) and quality of work Oce and other support facilies 5.4 up (up 0.4 to 7.5). The only key aspect of lawyers working lives that has not shown Career prospects 5.0 much improvement is pay/pension, up just 0.1 to 6.4. Figure 3: What would you describe as your main career ambition? However, four key categories remain below a satisfactory score of 6 out of To move into (or up) the management chain within a local 44% 10IT and research facilities, professional authority or other public sector legal department development opportunities, office and To remain broadly at my exisng level within a local authority or 33% support facilities and, last of all, career other public sector legal department prospects.Other 11% The survey also asked lawyers what To change career completely 5% they thought the best and worst aspects of working for local government were. To move into private pracce 4% Although this was asked as an open question rather than multiple choice, by grouping To move into a non-legal role within the public sector 2% similar comments together we have created To move into a legal role in the charitable sector 1% the statistical charts on these pages (FIG 2 and FIG 3).When it comes to the best aspects of A question of trust towards this. [In the past], the team wasclient as with the culture of the legal team.very much considered a roadblock due toIt will depend on the client department There has also been a marked improvementthe speed of service and the lack of desireand the point in any project when legal in how local government lawyers feel theyto be facilitative. This has changed. Now, weadvice is requested, said one in-house are perceived by their authorities (FIGare seen as a roadblock only when there arelawyer. If legal comes to the table late we 4). Almost three-in-four (73%) think thatgovernance and/or process issues and weare usually seen as obstructive but if we are their team is considered, in general, to bedo not simply rubber-stamp everything. in at the beginning of the project we can a trusted adviser by their authorities, aSome teams do consider us to be ahave a very positive relationship.5% rise on 2015. By contrast, 13% say thatremote service department but this isWhile there were also one or two their department is a remote servicedefinitely improving due to the hard work ofcomments about how shifting to a shared department while 14% think that it isthe team (following new staff appointments)service and/or ABS had damaged client perceived as a roadblock to change andto market the team and network internally. relationships, the proportion of those innovation.In the open comments for this question,respondents currently working in a shared I think the department is currentlyquite a number of people added the caveatlegal department who felt that they considered as all three at times, said onethat the view would vary depending onwere trusted advisers68%was not respondent. I am not confident that itwhich client department or director wasdramatically lower than those in single is truly considered by all to be a trustedasked and that the perception was as muchauthority teams at 72%.adviser although it is moving more and moreto do with the attitude and approach of the'