Local gems

I would like to correct the potentially misleading impression given by the paraphrasing of my comments in the article on the pooling of advocacy services within local authorities (see [2002] Gazette, 11 April, 4).The best value regime obliges councils constantly to strive for the provision of services of the highest possible quality at the most competitive price.

Day in and day out, in-house legal teams deliver in the face of intense pressures, because they are able to make available an extraordinary breadth of experience, expertise and adaptability to their local authority clients.But the range of public and administrative law is hugely diverse and it can occasionally be difficult, particularly for smaller councils, to have the necessary budgetary flexibility comprehensively to cover every aspect of this enormous body of law in-house.The opportunity for economies of scale presented by this innovative scheme is important, but this should not be seen as a comment on standards of service at present.

It represents another example of the imaginative response to budgetary pressures (in the interest of maintaining high standards) for which local authority lawyers are rightly famed.Nigel Roberts, chairman of the Law Society's local government group