The contracting out of legal services within the public sector

Abstract

The recently published Local Government Bill includes a provision enabling the Secretary of State to extend compulsory competitive tendering to the provision of professional advice to local authorities, but is privatization the answer to the supply of legal services to the public sector? In this article Douglas Robertson reviews the situation by reference to a paper recently published by the Audit Commission. He considers the nature of the services public authorities require from their lawyers and suggests that compulsory competitive tendering may not be the appropriate means to obtaining a cost‐effective service of appropriate quality.