Finnish lawyers head to Westminster for CCT tips

A DELEGATION of private sector lawyers from Finland is to visit Westminster Council for a fact-finding mission on competitive tendering.

The council now claims to be attracting interest from around the globe with its pioneering stance on the contracting out of public services.

Organisers of the latest consultation exercise say they chose the central London authority

because of its experience of private sector initiatives.

The 25 members of the Private Sector Lawyers' Association will meet Roger Allard, Westminster head of contracts and audits, and possibly a member of the council's legal department on 5 October.

They hope to gain an insight into the privatisation process in order to benefit from contracts put out to tender by Finnish authorities during their equivalent to CCT.

Juha Seppala, the delegation's organiser, said: "Since Westminster has been leading in this area, the visit will be extremely beneficial to them."

Seppala, an in-house counsel who works for Rank Xerox, added: "They are private sector lawyers, so what they hope to gain is knowledge of how their companies can benefit if they win contracts from the public sector bodies."

Among the services contracted out at Westminster are large tranches of the council's legal work.

Firms which have been awarded tendered contracts include Shindler & Co, Judge & Priestly, Sharpe Pritchard and Bermans.

Earlier this year, the council re-tendered its conveyancing and contracts work pending the expiry of the existing agreement next year.

A council spokesman said: "Westminster's expertise has attracted worldwide interest, in particular from the numerous countries which are having to find new and more flexible arrangements for providing

services."

Westminster Council has appointed Cambridge law graduate Richard Buxton as director of education and leisure.