Local Government Lawyer Insight July 2017 LocalGovernmentLawyer 26 selling. It may therefore alongside managing its own supply chain need to focus on marketing, client management, even tender writing. For lawyers too there could well be a new range of issues to consider, apart from just regulatory matters. A key area will be contractual terms and conditions and risk. Although most authorities will have suites of contracts used in procurement, they will have been designed to secure the position of the council as purchaser. Its risk and concerns may be very different when it is supplying. Thought will need to be given to developing (or negotiating) terms that reflect the needs and risks of the business and its commercial model. Another area that may become more prominent is intellectual property. For many businesses brand protection is fundamental and this will increasingly become so for council businesses as they grow. The move to commercialisation offers potentially exciting opportunities but it does also raise a new range of challenge and risk. It will be vital that legal teams are involved from the outset to ensure those issues can be covered off and contribute to success. Richard Auton and Kate Webster both work in the Energy, Infrastructure and Government Group at law firm Walker Morris LLP Richard is an experienced public sector lawyer. He joined Walker Morris from Norwich City Council where he had been the City Clerk and Monitoring Officer. He headed up the legal team, had responsibility for the Council’s governance arrangements and functions such as Licensing, Elections and Property. He was deputy to the Chief Executive and a member of the Management Team. He had previously worked for Norfolk, North Yorkshire, West Glamorgan and Devon County Councils. This has given him first- hand experience of advising on the full range of local authority functions and of the political and management dimensions involved. richard.auton@walkermorris.co.uk +44 (0)113 283 2575 Kate has over 10 years experience advising the public sector and utilities on public procurement and state aid. She joined Walker Morris in 2016 after working as the in-house procurement counsel for a publicly owned infrastructure developer in Denmark tendering the €5.5bn Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link (a 18km road and rail sub-sea tunnel between the Denmark and Germany). Prior to that she worked in private practice advising both private and public sector organisations on tendering processes, regulated procurements, European grant funding compliance and complex commercial agreements. kate.webster@walkermorris.co.uk +44 (0)113 283 2572 The move to commercialisation offers potentially exciting opportunities but it does also raise a new range of challenge and risk.