b'Increase signicantly (>10%) 50%Increase slightly (5%-10%) 37%Stay more or the less the same (+/-5%) 11%Decrease slightly (-5% to -10%) 2%Decrease signicantly (>-10%) 0%6 Local Government Lawyerplanning and property most likely to beFigure 2: What are the main strategies for coping with future demands?outsourced (FIG 5)but many would prefer this proportion to be lower. Using private practice law firms more often 56%Almost a third30% (FIG 6)expect toHelping client departments to undertake the early stages of orreduce their external legal spend compared routine legal work themselves 52%with 18% who expect it to increase. ByExpanding the size of the legal department 50%contrast, 57% intend to increase the sizeInvesting in legal technology to increase efficiency/delegate of their departments, against just 8% whowork to more junior staff 47%expect to see them shrink. There is anRestructuring the legal department into more specialist teams 32%appreciation [at my council] of the true costEntering into or expanding a shared service arrangement 31%of legal services being more than the cost of the in-house provision and that the in-houseUsing other local authorities traded legal services 19%provision presents better value for moneyRenegotiating SLAs with client departments 15%per hour charged, said one respondent. Using PSL-type services to increase efficiency/delegate There is evidence in the recruitmentwork to more junior staff 10%market that more council leadership teamsUsing the Bar more often 8%are sanctioning the recruitment of in-house lawyers to rein in external legal bills, butOther (please specify in comments box) 3%whether this aim can be achieved will depend on whether in-house legal teamsFigure 3: Do you consider the overall fees charged for ROUTINE legal services to be:can find (and retain) the right people in the first place. Demand for in-house local government lawyers has grown stronglyExtoronate 2%in recent years to the extent that almost all participants to the survey (87%) sayToo high 45%that hiring qualified staff is difficult, 39% described it as very difficult (FIG 7). About right 53%Recruitment and retention has become the biggest single management challengeGood value 0%for legal department management in this years survey, being placed in the top threeRemarkably cheap 0%problems by 70% of respondents, some way ahead of the second biggest challenge, cost control (FIG 8). By contrast, when thisFigure 4: Approximately what proportion of your overall legal work do you send to external survey was first taken in 2011, recruitmentproviders?and retention came just 7th in the list of management headaches, behind cost control, litigation risk and growing the role>75% 2%of the legal department amongst others.51%-75% 2%The reasons forand solutions tothis problem are many and varied and are41%-50% 2%discussed elsewhere in this report (see The Race for Talent, p12). 31%-40% 5%Too busy to share 21%-30% 11%Yet while using private practice is seemed11%-20% 30%too expensive by many and recruitment difficult, some of the other initiatives aimed1%-10% 49%at improving efficiencyshared services,0% 0%alternative business structures (ABSs) and inter-authority trading of legal servicesare running out of steam.With regard to shared services, of the 76'