Legal Affairs & Policy Board Report for Council
14th November

 Review of Committee Structure
The Board are still trying to obtain costings for the committee structure as a whole and it is hoped that these will be made available shortly as this will inform the planned review.

The present system is causing dissatisfaction and it has been agreed that whilst each committee can only be allocated policy advisor time based on successful bids (rather than having an allocated policy advisor as of right), the present system needs reviewing and the Chief Executive has agreed that this will take place.

There is clearly confusion as to the role of the Law Society committees, the way in which the committees operate and what is expected of Committee chairs and members and indeed staff. It is important that expectations are clearly set out and there is some degree of uniformity between committees.

There are suggestions that new methods of working could be looked at. It was noted that a good example was the HIPs taskforce which had come into being to deal with a specific task and then had terminated when that work was complete and in some areas this may be more productive than a standing committee. It was felt likely that the committee chairs would be a good source of ideas and information and the meeting with committee chairs is eagerly anticipated.

The review will include the appointments process, committee membership and structure, and outcomes from meetings. It was felt important that the Society be able to measure the effectiveness of committees and a mechanism will need to be developed to measure this, as it is likely that the profession will ultimately demand this.

The Board is preparing a methodology for the review, which will be discussed with committee chairs at the meeting on 10 December.

Committee business plans
The 29 October meeting was devoted to reviewing the business plans submitted by committees. This was the second exercise in committee business planning, the first having been carried out by a joint meeting of the Law Reform and Representation Boards earlier in 2007. The papers for the 2008 business planning exercise included:

• a progress report of the objectives agreed in March 2007, many of which were continuing;
• a summary of the Committees’ 2008 business plans with an initial assessment of the relative priority of proposed activities and the resources; and
• the assessment criteria based on the proportion of the profession affected and the impact on that section of the profession.

The Board considered the recommendations on the proposed activities and the allocation of resources, mindful of the fact that the resources available were limited and that the Council and indeed the profession has to be satisfied that they are being used to maximum effect.

The outcomes from the meeting will be collated and reported to committee chairs shortly.
The Board’s workplan
The Board has provisionally agreed its workplan subject to a further discussion on 20 November. Key issues which the Board will be focusing on are a review of the committee structure, representation issues for different sectors of the profession, international issues and Legal Aid. It is envisaged that in persuing it’s representative objectives that there must be consultation direct with the relevant sectors of the profession but that this should be by electronic means to save costs.

Legal Aid
The Board has discussed at length the formulation of the Society’s future policy on Legal Aid. The President and the Board agreed that the Council should have a major debate on the principles, and this item forms a significant part of the agenda for the 14 November meeting.

Recently, Bostalls, a non-solicitor firm, won a contract to provide police station representatives, formerly a solicitor-only duty. There is a difficult balance to strike on the ne hand the values of the profession and the benefit to the public in using a solicitor must be promoted but the Society must do all it can to ensure that the profession can compete on a level playing field with non-solicitor entities.

Appointments to external bodies
The Board is also reviewing the list of Society appointees to external bodies and the process for making external appointments. The Board feels that where an appointment has been made to a body where the work is of direct relevance to the profession or the activities of the Law Society written reports should be submitted to the Board on a regular basis.

The Board will also be reviewing whether such appointments should be dependent on he person remaining a member of Council, particularly where the appointment was made on that basis.

Policy compendium
The Board were concerned that there should be no further delay in producing a policy compendium as this is vital for the work of the Board and committees. Whilst they expressed interest in a Wiki-style solution they felt that a delay of one year to produce this was unacceptable and in any event the policy material would need to be gatheredtogether to be input on the system. They were extremely grateful to Richard Scholfield for volunteering to take this project in hand.

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