Government Legal Service facing deep cuts
The 2,000-strong Government Legal Service is facing job cuts of 20% to 40%, as government savings targets translate directly into headcount reductions, the Gazette has learned.
The news comes as the Attorney General’s Office confirmed that government departments will also be seeking to ‘look critically’ at their external legal spend.
The Ministry of Justice; Department of Health; Department for Business Innovation and Skills; Department for Culture, Media & Sport; and Department for Work and Pensions are all looking at slashing their legal teams by 25% to 30%, according to informed Gazette sources.
Across the board, cuts are understood to range from 20% to 40%. The Gazette reported last week that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is seeking to cut 40% of lawyers, amounting to 42 posts.
The Gazette has been told that senior posts will be among the first to disappear, and a department-by-department review of other posts will be required to identify 20%-40% of savings, in line with the targets outlined in the government’s spending review.
Cuts at the MoJ will also follow court closures. Public services union Prospect has predicted that a number of the MoJ’s 115 GLS lawyers will be among the 685 posts it expects the department to lose overall, as the MoJ finds required savings of £325m.
The Gazette has also been told that senior lawyers charged with finding savings are frustrated at being told that they cannot ‘spend to save’, for example by purchasing software that could improve case management or be used to control their spending on outside lawyers.
Prospect has warned that many departments are not conducting skills audits as part of their departmental reviews. The Gazette understands that this may lead to a failure by departments to identify what is likely to be an increase in demand for lawyers within government.
At the Office of the Attorney General, who is notional head of the GLS, a spokeswoman said departments were looking closely at their costs, including the amount spent on law firms.
She added: ‘GLS lawyers are employed by the departments in which they work and it is for individual departments to decide on the size and structure of their legal team. All departments are looking at the costs of their various functions in the context of the current Spending Review, including looking critically at their external legal spend.’
Comments
One way the Government can
One way the Government can reduce spending, while promoting its ideal of the freedom of the individual, is to abolish chancel repair liability. If more applications are made by PCCs for registration of notices against lay rectors' titles, leading up to the registration deadline of 12 October 2013, more and more time will be spent by Land Registry staff dealing with disputes about registrations. More and more time will be spent by staff of the National Archives dealing with chancel repair searches.
It is contrary to the principles of religious freedom and individual liberty that an owner of land should have a liability to repair the chancel of his parish church, for ever and without payment.
The Government has invited the public to contribute ideas on its HMG Your Freedom web site, and to vote on the ideas submitted. Few people have yet voted on chancel repair liability. They should and this will influence the Government's agenda. Letters should also be sent to Lord McNally who is the Minister of Justice responsible for legislation and law reform, and he is also responsible for the Land Registry and the National Archives. The Church of England abolished chancel liability for its own clergy in 1923, but will not think about doing so for the rest of us until after 12 October 2013. The archaic muddle is being left to the lawyers and Parliament to sort out, but it seems few PCCs are attempting to register. If anyone knows about actual cases of claims by PCCs it would be helpful to post details here.
It has been suggested by Church lawyers that abolition would infringe Article 1 of the First Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights. As is well known, the article protects the freedom of natural and legal persons to enjoy their possessions, but this right is not absolute and where it is in the public interest the State has the right to control the use of property in accordance with the law.
If the Church or any PCC believes this article has been infringed, it has the right to take its case to the European Court of Human Rights, which in theory might award compensation. The Government then has the right to deduct the amount of any such compensation awards from the budget of English Heritage for payments for church repairs.