Edinburgh to consider remodelling legal services, procure £2.6m pa legal panels

The City of Edinburgh Council has identified legal services “as an area to potentially undergo significant service delivery re-modelling” as part of the authority’s Transformation Programme.

The authority made the comments as it unveiled plans in a prior information notice to procure external legal services through a framework agreement with an estimated value of £2.6m a year.

The new framework agreement is expected to start in December this year for a period of two years with the option to extend for a further two periods of one year each.

The five lots are:

1. Commercial (which will see the appointment of a maximum of six firms);

2. Property & Planning (appointment of a maximum of six firms);

3. Litigation (appointment of a maximum of 4 firms);

4. Employment (appointment of a maximum of 6 firms); and

5. Major Projects (appointment of a maximum of 3 firms).

In the prior information notice City of Edinburgh said it would seek to support small and medium sized enterprises by allocating a set number of places on four of the five lots to firms with an annual turnover below a certain threshold.

It added that the lots would be allocated as follows:

• Lots 1, 2 and 4: appointment of the 4 firms achieving the best overall scores in terms of quality and price and the appointment of an additional 2 firms out-with the top 4 which have a turnover of less than £20m;
• Lot 3: appointment of the 2 firms achieving the best overall scores in terms of quality and price and an additional 2 firms out-with the top 2 which have a turnover of less than £15m; and
• Lot 5: appointment of 3 firms of any turnover.

The Contract Notice & PQQ was due to be published yesterday (19 August 2015).

City of Edinburgh said it anticipated that other Scottish local authorities would have access to utilise the framework agreement.