Birmingham City Council changes delivery model for legal services

Birmingham City Council is to make changes to its Legal Services Department delivery model, with plans to operate in a "Core/Core Plus" model for the remainder of 2018/19 and into future years.

In a report to a meeting of the council’s co-ordinating overview and scrutiny committee earlier this month, City Solicitor Kate Charlton said financial challenges in Legal Services had led to a review of service delivery priorities.

“For the last six years, Legal Services have meticulously reviewed and planned resources based on existing and forecasted demand; the result is that the total current workload required by Directorates cannot be delivered within the amount funded by the Corporate Centre. Whilst the amount provided has never been enough to meet demand in its entirety, there is a need to formally address this via a mechanism that provides the City Council with a sustainable legal function and gives clarity and visibility to all about the functions that are provided,” she said.

Charlton said Legal Services had therefore split their processes into a Core category, which will be funded by the Corporate Centre, and a Core Plus category which will be funded by alternative sources.

Core delivery areas and processes are primarily concerned with ensuring no citizen/service is left without necessary support, and keeping the city council safe and legal.

Charlton said in the report that Legal Services would include as many additional areas of legal support as possible into Core funded work. “The Core is fluid – work can be swapped, added to or subtracted from in accordance with priorities, available funding and agreement with frontline directorates.”

The report said Core Plus work funding sources were numerous, examples including but not being limited to:

• recovered fees being retained in the event of success in contentious matters;
• recovering fees from external grants to service areas; capital schemes; external developer funding or internal charging.

“The alternative is that Core Plus work could cease and staff reduced in order to meet the funding gap, although this would likely result in the work being replicated elsewhere,” Charlton said.

Where internal charging is necessary, a commercial approach to the work will be undertaken, she added, “enabling efficiencies, comparisons with private sector providers, and ensuring value for money is demonstrated”.

“In addition to a commercial approach being taken to delivering legal work, the department will also closely collaborate with directorates to achieve desired outcomes jointly, whilst also undertaking focussed activity to reduce Core Plus work, and associated additional legal expenditure, via a revised approach to Joint Action Planning that will incorporate delivering strategies to reduce or eliminate failure demand.”

This approach to collaboration could also be extended to the West Midlands Combined Authority “with anticipated - although uncalculated - resource/efficiency gains for all”, Charlton added.

A webcast for the meeting can be viewed here.

In the meeting Charlton told committee members that the council spends £9m on external legal costs, where the council does not have the capacity in Legal Services to support the council or where the matter requires the instruction of counsel because of the specific issues at stake or it has reached the stage of litigation.

She said part of the reason for adapting the delivery model was to bring down the council’s expenditure in these areas.