Legal services joint venture collapses
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A joint venture between four councils which had promised £1m in efficiency savings has fallen apart after the largest partner announced its withdrawal.
Surrey County Council has announced that it is withdrawing from the Orbis Public Law (OPL) partnership, set up in 2016 with Brighton and Hove City Council, East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council.
As recently as April, the partnership had been predicting it would save £682,000 for the partner councils this financial year.
A report by Leigh Whitehouse, executive director of resources at the council, said: “Surrey County Council has taken the decision to focus on an internal review of its legal services function over the next 12 months.
“As a consequence, it is not currently intended to fully integrate Surrey’s legal services within the Orbis Public Law (OPL) partnership.”
The report went on to say that each authority would retain its own legal service.
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It said that as a result of Surrey’s decision to withdraw, “the remaining Sussex partners have reviewed their position and have far less confidence in the amount of saving/efficiency that could reality be unlocked, especially when weighed up against the significant disruption that a restructure would entail in a challenging employment market”.
The Sussex councils will halt progress on integration, Whitehouse said, instead focusing on enhanced collaboration.
OPL was launched in 2016, with the intention of making £1m of savings within three years.
At the time, David Elkin, then lead member for resources at East Sussex County Council, said: “By creating what is believed to be one of the biggest legal operations in local government, we can achieve greater resilience, reduce cost and deliver savings through economies of scale, avoidance of duplication and income generation.”
In January 2018, OPL launched its business plan, which focused on three key projects – an integrated staffing structure, a joint operational budget and a single case management platform.
However, in the past year, Surrey embarked on a major transformation programme.
Whitehouse said: “As part of that, Surrey wishes to review its legal services function, and therefore does not consider it right to commit to an integrated staffing structure and pooled budget at this stage.
“As the three projects are intrinsically linked, this means that Surrey will not take part in any of the key projects.”
The decision to withdraw from OPL will cost Surrey £18,000, relating to work to disaggregate the organisation’s management system.In April, a report to the OPL joint committee said that “2019 is an important year for OPL while the blueprint for the single structure is designed”.
It said that while timescales had slipped slightly this was still achievable.
The move to abandon OPL does not affect the wider Orbis partnership between the councils, which runs shared services in procurement, property, finance, business operations, human resources and digital.
Earlier this year, South Cambridgeshire District Council dropped plans for a joint finance function with neighbouring Cambridge City Council amid concerns over whether shared services are achieving value for money.
