Stoke-on-Trent City Council is looking to set up partnerships with local law firms with the aim of driving down rising costs that it blames on problems recruiting experienced solicitors for its own in-house team.

The council has paid out almost 689,000 to law firms dealing with various projects this year - up from 273,000 in 1999 - and has put this down to 'heavier workloads and lack of expertise in some specialist fields' among its in-house legal department.

Attempts to recruit more experienced lawyers have failed; the council is looking for solicitors with experience in corporate contracts, social services and education, and housing and consumer protection.

The move comes shortly after a warning from a Solicitors in Local Government (SLG) group that council legal departments are facing problems because of a lack of resources, coupled with more work owing to the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Constitutional issues, new trading powers and stock transfers are also bumping up the workload.

Chairwoman Maria Memoli predicted at SLG's annual conference in April that local authorities would have to 'become very creative and develop political acumen' to deal with the situation (see [2004] Gazette, 8 April, 4).

Paula Rohan