Law Officer's Department: Additional Manpower Approval

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A decision made on 13 October 2009 to approve the Law Officer's Department request for an additional Legal Advisor Post

Decision Reference: MD-TR-2009-0167
Decision Summary Title:	Law Officers’ Department Additional Manpower Approval – Legal Advisor		Date of Decision Summary:	7 October 2009
Decision Summary Author:	Finance Manager, Decision Support		Decision Summary: Public or Exempt?	Public
Type of Report: Oral or Written?	Written		Person Giving Oral Report:	N/A
Written Report Title:	Law Officers’ Department - Request for Additional Manpower.		Date of Written Report:	7 October 2009
Written Report Author:	Finance Manager, Decision Support		Written Report : Public or Exempt?	Public
Subject: The approval of the Law Officers’ request for an increase in established manpower in order to appoint a Legal Advisor to deal with the increase in cases as a result of the Williamson implementation plan.
Decision(s): The Minister for Treasury and Resources approved the Law Officers’ Department request for one additional FTE/headcount to appoint the Legal Advisor post.
Reason(s) for Decision: To comply with Standing Order 21 and P67/1999 – Regulation of Public Sector Employees charging the Minister for Treasury and Resources to regulate the number of persons employed by the States.
Resource Implications: The approval of this decision will permanently increase the Law Officers’ Department established manpower by 1.0 FTE and 1 headcount. Other than those noted in the report there are no financial implications.
Action required: Finance Manager to inform Senior Human Recourses Manager that the post has been approved and to take note of the new post when completing the States Manpower Report.
Signature:		Position: P F C Ozouf Minister for Treasury and Resources
Date Signed:		Date of Decision:

Law Officer's Department: Additional Manpower Approval

TREASURY AND RESOURCES MINISTER

law officers’ department

request for additional manpower

Purpose of Report

To enable the Minister for Treasury and Resources to approve a request from the Law Officers’ Department for an increase of one additional post to their established manpower in order to relieve the workload presented by the Childrens’ Service.

Background

Standing Order 21 provides delegated authority to the Treasurer of the States for agreeing non-contentious increases to States manpower. However, the decision has been given to the Minister for Treasury and Resources due to the situation leading to the request for additional manpower.

The historic child abuse enquiries and the implementation of the Williamson recommendations have resulted in an increase in the number and complexity of legal representations in children’s matters referred to the Law Officers’ Department. The Law Officers’ understood that the £2.8 million proposed for 2010 1 , to implement the Williamson recommendations, included funding for an additional advocate to deal with the increase in cases. Unfortunately the £2.8 million did not include funding for additional manpower for the Law Officers’ and the existing resource is currently overstretched.

This resulted in a letter to the Minister for Health and Social Services from the Solicitor General dated 11 September 2009 regrettably announcing that a number of case files relating to children’s legal matters were to be returned to Health and Social Services and advising they seek external legal representation.

It is viewed by both departments that this is neither the most consistent or cost efficient method of dealing with the cases and that they should remain within the Law Officers’ Department.

Costs

In order to deal with the increase in cases, the Law Officers’ Department wish to recruit an advocate at a Legal Advisor grade costing circa £80,000 per annum. However, the Law Officers’ Department have stated that based on previous experience, the likelihood of being able to attract anyone from the private sector on that grade is small. Therefore provisions may need to be made in order for the Department to recruit a J-Category post. This would result in additional non reoccurring expense of £10,000, resulting in a total cost of £90,000 for the first year, but this would fall back to circa £80,000 in subsequent years.

Funding

Health and Social Services have agreed to reorganise the way in which the funds agreed by the States in response to the Williamson Report are used in order to fund the post. The budget for the post will be transferred to the Law Officers' Department from Health once the new position is filled.

Recommendation

That the Minister approves the request from the Law Officers’ Department to increase their established manpower by one post so the Department may appoint a Legal Advisor to ensure all cases relating to children’s matters remain in-house.

Reason for Decision

To ensure compliance with P167/1999 Regulation of Public Sector Employees

States Treasury Nick Collins, Finance Manager Decision Support

12 October, 2009