b'Local Government Lawyer 7Table 4: Based on your experience of the lockdown so far, how difficult have the following managementworking, said another.challenges been when staff have been remote working? (Management survey) Client relationships do not appear to have generally become strained either, although 4% they have changed for many. In particular, a Training of sta 12% 39% 37% 8% number of both management and other legal staff have found that easy access to client 2% departments via video call has changed the Monitoring of quality of work 10% 31% 53% 4% dynamic, for good or ill.Access by clients appears to be more 2% intensive remotely, said one head of legal. Supervision of sta 10% 44% 38% 6% You are going from one meeting to another because you dont need to book a room and Management of workow 4% 29% 63% 2% 2% the assumption is you dont need as long a break between meetings when you are working at home.Eciency 4% 20% 41% 27% 8% The reliance on email has meant that messages can be misconstrued which 6% wouldnt happen face to face, says another. Informaon Security 2% 27% 63% 2% Staff needs have increased and they want quicker responses, as do clients.6% According to a further respondent, this Communicaon with clients 18% 69% 8% may not be a bad thing. Our clients accept us working remotely whereas beforehand some Much more dicult when sta are working remotely had a rather old-fashioned notion that we had to be present in their building to be their legal Moderately more dicult when sta are working remotely team. Those days are gone!No signicant dierence Amongst local government lawyers in general, some of the suggested improvements Moderately beer remotely for continued remote working mostly revolve Much beer remotely around the provision of better technology, especially matter management software and video calling.Table 5: To what extent has the technology available to you helped in each of these aspects? (ManagementAnd while efficiency and productivity seem survey) to have survived lockdown surprisingly well, there were also a number of comments from staff that the structure and reporting lines 2% of their departments need to be reviewed if Communicaon with clients 55% 43% remote working is to become a permanent Eciency 42% 40% 10% 8% feature of the landscape. What is needed is an organisational Informaon Security 42% 50% 8% framework for working remotely, said one. Protocols to help avoid silo working Training of sta 39% 55% 6% and suitable support mechanismshow can we show we value people when they are remote, especially in these challenging Supervision of sta 33% 56% 12% circumstances?4% We need an updated management Monitoring of quality 25% 61% 10% structure that would enable better allocation 6% of work to experience/capacity and improve Management of workow 25% 60% 10% teamwork. The current structure leads to absent/ineffective management and a duplication of work, said another.Very useful and well-adapted to our needs Communication with remote working staff is also key, although in this respect some legal Helpful, but needs some improvements department management may feel that they Helpful, but needs signicant improvements are damned if they do and damned if they dont. In the general survey, for every lawyer Inadequate who felt isolated and forgotten about, another was complaining of micromanagement and too many online meetings. Clearly, the on-'