London Boroughs appoint 19 chambers in £25m panel review

The list of chambers includes Five St Andrew’s Hill, Pump Court, 11KBW and Doughty Street Chambers.

Previously, the panel was made up of 29 sets of chambers but 63 per cent of the LBLA’s legal expenditure had been paid to six chambers over the life of the framework. The new panel has been designed to reduce the number of advisers but increase the distribution of work among its members.

It was originally understood that the panel would be made up of between five and 10 legal providers when the LBLA announced the review through its contract notice in August.

The framework will begin on 1 January 2016 and will run for three years. However, it will also include an option to extend the panel for an additional year. The panel has been split into seven lots covering adult social services, children’s services, governance and public law, criminal litigation and prosecutions, housing, planning and property and civil litigation.

The LBLA was originally set up to reduce the costs of legal fees among public sector organisations during a period when local authorities were facing huge cuts to their budgets. It now consists of London Boroughs of Brent, Camden, City of London, Ealing, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea and Waltham Forest. Waltham Forest acted as the lead authority during the retendering process.