Leicestershire and Warwickshire district councils launch joint legal team
Four district councils in Leicestershire and Warwickshire have teamed up to launch a joint legal services team.
The new service, which will have a total of 12 lawyers, consists of the legal departments at Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, Blaby District Council, Oadby and Wigston Borough Council, and North Warwickshire Borough Council.
It will be managed by a board consisting of the four heads of legal at the local authorities. Hinckley and Bosworth, which has the biggest legal team of the districts, will act as the hub for the shared service.
In a statement, the four participating authorities said they believed that efficiencies and savings would be driven by sharing resources and retaining work in-house.
The service will initially be delivered through a virtual team approach, although it is intended that the approach will develop in time to a one location solution.
The predicted benefits of the arrangements include:
- Access to the combined team’s specialist knowledge
- Mentoring and coaching support
- Shadowing opportunities for less experienced members
- Appropriate and effective recruitment thanks to a skills gap analysis
- Reduced outsourcing to private practice and counsel
- Income generation, and
- Cutting back on library resources across the districts but expanding availability of an online reference system.
The four councils said: “Undoubtedly one of the main drivers is efficiency, and over the next two years a number of opportunities in terms of income generation and cost sharing have been identified.
“The opportunity has arisen from a number of shared service discussions across the two counties and this partnership has developed due to their shared experiences, authority size and close geography.
“We recognise that working together we are better able to provide a range of legal services for all the authorities and have more opportunities for staff progression, team support and resilience.”
The statement added that it was “recognised that not all authorities will make the same level of savings or income but that the efficiencies will be for the partnership.”
Last month Local Government Lawyer revealed that a group of local authorities in Norfolk is to implement a joint legal services team.
The key stakeholders in Norfolk Legal – as the new, 73-staff strong service will be known – are Norfolk County Council, Norwich City Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council.
Other authorities, including Broadland District Council and the Broads Authority, will enter service level agreements with the integrated service, but will not transfer staff or share in the risk and reward.