District council wins ‘Legal Services Innovation’ category at LexisNexis Legal Awards 2023
North West Leicestershire District Council has won the ‘Legal Services Innovation’ category in the LexisNexis Legal Awards 2023.
The local authority’s submission was based on its development of an online interactive Governance Toolkit, which is aimed at demystifying corporate governance and empowering clients to find answers without wading through a 300-page Constitution.
The toolkit include guidance, templates, training, and flowcharts on:
- How the team works and what support can it offer
- Instructing legal services and getting the most out of the team
- Officer delegations
- Member decision making
- Contract approvals
- Approvals required for commencing, defending or settling legal proceedings
- Signing and sealing documents
- Legal project planning
In its submission for the awards, the council said the toolkit enhances the support provided by the legal team rather than replaces it. “It is already changing behaviours within client teams and enabling them to find answers, gain confidence and improve agility.
“Clients are able to use it to home in on the more complex issues which require specialist legal support. At a time when resources are tight and councils are struggling financially, it would be easy for governance processes to slip. The local government and national press have seen recent examples of councils in financial crisis. Poor corporate governance is always at the heart of the problem. NWLDC legal teams work ensures a shared accountability for corporate governance across the organisation.”
In support of the submission, Andy Barton, Strategic Director at North West Leicestershire, said: “Our in-house legal team are always proactive; looking for ways that they can support our staff and members to do their jobs more easily. As with other services, they have had to adapt how they work and look at innovative ways in which they can provide timely and effective support to teams remotely following the effects of restrictions of the pandemic.”
Julia Marshall, the council’s Climate Change Programme Manager, added that she was “a big fan” of the toolkit, saying: “We are all busy in our roles and sometimes it can be hard to understand or remember the correct governance process to follow, especially for those tasks that are used on an ad hoc basis, and ideally available at a time that is suitable for our own diaries, especially with our new hybrid and flexible ways of working, without wasting the time of an equally busy colleague. The Legal Services governance toolkit has really helped to address this. “
