Interview: Sandra Dickson

As the media’s voracious appetite for prurient stories about the legal profession is further fed by news of the first £1million advertised appointment for a City lawyer, the contrasting notion of a solicitor with a calling to public service seems distinctly unglamorous.

Thus while the workings of a council’s legal services department is unlikely to provide the setting for the BBC’s next “docu-soap”, the popular perception of the local authority solicitor working rigid, short hours, immune from the stresses of earning fees, is, if it ever had any foundation, surely now a thing of the past.

In fact, the wholesale changes in local government in recent times has required council solicitors to demonstrate the sort of willingness to adapt to changing circumstances that would surprise many of their more sceptical colleagues in the private sector and beyond.

As head of legal services at South Lanarkshire Council, and having spent most of her 27-year working life in public service, Sandra Dickson has had to adjust to an ever-changing climate - and one which is likely to alter again soon as the Scottish Parliament is born.

“It seems likely that the relationship between local authorities and the Scottish Parliament will change our way of working,” said Sandra Dickson.  “But I am optimistic that change will create a strong relationship between the Parliament and local authorities.

“Undeniably our workload will change but that makes it an interesting time for local authority lawyers.  Our particular hope is for new legislation that might allow public-private partnerships to become easier, introducing powers that will allow us to be innovative in our arrangements with the private sector.

“I am sure we will be consulted if such changes are contemplated; at the moment we have people contributing to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities taskforce which will feed into the parliamentary process and it is encouraging that people are listening to the debates going on and taking on board the issues that need to be resolved.”

Whatever the Parliament decrees, Sandra Dickson is likely to be well prepared to respond accordingly.  Having coped with reorganisation, Compulsory Competitive Tendering and its offspring, Best Value, in less than five years, she is phlegmatic when discussing the effects of change.

“With reorganisation, some local authorities were polarised.  We were fortunate enough to inherit a number of ex-district and regional functions from a variety of ex-districts and the former Strathclyde Region and we had the benefit of people coming from backgrounds such as East Kilbride Development Corporation who brought their own ways of doing things which helped us look at working methods afresh.

“Our teams have now consolidated, although there remains a constant process of learning and helping each other to bring a number of different systems into line.  It is a constant learning curve to learn about new areas of work and this has involved a lot of in-house training as part of our employee development.

“With a staff of 14 full-time and 7 job-share solicitors we now have a bigger variety of work.  Staff who were used to specialising can now do so as part of a wider team, though not perhaps as much as they could in a large organisation.”

For South Lanarkshire’s streamlined legal department their philosophy is to be as flexible as possible.  In one day a solicitor’s caseload could diversify from housing initiatives to contracts via education and community care.  Council solicitors are also involved in operating the area’s four district courts and four licensing divisions.

Indeed, one of the major benefits of reorganisation, according to Sandra Dickson, has been the shifting of legal services to become part of the Council’s Corporate Resources operation, which includes personnel, public relations, administration and corporate policy, some of which were traditionally part of the chief executive’s remit.

“As part of a larger resource we’re working more closely with colleagues from different backgrounds.  My immediate director isn’t legally qualified and it’s advantageous to have discussions free of legal jargon.

“We now tend to present things in a clear way and it’s useful to be asked questions that lawyers don’t ask themselves.  Our colleagues in public relations will consult us where an issue arises with major legal consequences and seek our comments and, likewise, when we’re presenting something they have helped us translate legal language into something more readily understandable”.

Sandra Dickson’s innovative approach to the provision of local authority legal services is most vividly demonstrated by her determination to forge closer links with the private sector.

“We’re certainly keen to enter more arrangements with the private sector, setting up joint companies.  Recent case law in England means bankers are hesitant about lending on these projects, but we’d like the powers to trade beyond the Local Authorities (Goods and Services) Act 1970.

“The public sector is much more bound by statute and sometimes our private sector colleagues can be frustrated particularly about timescales associated with our decision-making processes or the statutory frameworks which are necessary to comply with legislative requirements.

“Their perception is that things move slowly and we’re not always justifying our hours and costs.  But we do benchmark ourselves against the private sector and we are budget driven.”

To that end the council maintains a list of approved contractors under their best value initiative who can assume a project if they can offer a better quality and price.  Sandra Dickson is keen to strengthen these ties to improve the council’s package of legal services.

“One opportunity we hope to explore would be to shadow a private sector firm in areas where we’re not normally involved.  Firms admit we have expertise in many areas and we’d like to develop a closer working relationship with firms in the private sector to improve the provision of services where we lack expertise.”

Perhaps one might expect that the outlook of someone who is driven towards the public as opposed to private sector would inevitably bring some conflict in such a situation.  At least on a subliminal level, the private sector facilitator must have the idea of fee-earning as a motivation, something absent from the public sector employee.

“I think people come to work in the public sector because they genuinely believe they will be doing something worth while.  We always look for people with an enthusiasm for their work and a desire to make a difference in the community.

“Yet in other ways we’re really not that different from those working in the private sector.  Like them, we constantly have to justify our expenditure and be realistic when taking a view as to whether it is appropriate to move to the next step with a mind to the merits of the case.

“In assessing whether the costs outweigh the benefits of litigation we’re no different from anyone else and we’ll try and utilise mediation services in housing matters or arbitration to resolve contractual disputes, for example.”

Financial considerations are never far from Sandra Dickson’s mind.  The European Foundation Quality Model is used as a measure of how efficiently legal services are provided against an independent model as part of the continuing drive to make Best Value work.

“Best Value isn’t contained in statute so there is no clear definition.  We’re part of the Scottish benchmarking group which involves seminars and initiatives to identify areas which can be benchmarked.

“We also have a customer satisfaction survey to assess how our internal customers in other departments rate our performance and to discover where they’d like us to improve services.”

With the benefit of objectivity and with her own experiences of dealing with private practice, she is largely sympathetic to their concerns: “Like us, they’ve seen things change, there’s more competition and a diminishing workload so innovation is necessary to thrive.  Certainly more amalgamations may well be necessary but it’s true that restraints are now inevitable in both the private and public sector”.

So for private practices eager to participate in ventures with the public sector, what qualities must they bring to the partnership?

“Primarily we look for high standards, people we are confident could carry out the work effectively.  They would need to reassure us that their fees are reasonable and justify them.  I’d like to get to know the staff involved and their qualifications and be aware of any claims on their indemnity policies.  We’d demand expertise and an appreciation that where there are deadlines it is crucial these are met and they help us work towards them.

“We’ve been fortunate in partners we’ve worked with so far and they’ve also found it useful and are keen to continue to work with us.  In due course we hope to undertake a number of pilot schemes where we can tap into the specialisms of private firms.  There is certainly a willingness in the private sector to work together.

“One private practice solicitor who has worked with us on a new building development has remarked on the sense of civic pride he feels as he drives past it and watches its progress.  That’s the kind of partnership spirit we’re keen to foster.”

Of course, Sandra Dickson is perhaps fortunate in working for a council that seems able to steer clear of the political and policy disasters that have afflicted some of its near neighbours.  Not that she seems to have any problems in dealing with the interests of council members.

“When a councillor brings a constituent’s inquiry we work to a timescale by which we aim to have a response.  I have a good working relationship with the members, most of whom are amenable to discussion groups and training.  A full training programme exists for new members to make them familiar with rules as well as the specifics of areas like licensing.

“In many ways we are uniquely placed in that there is little that happens which doesn’t come through the legal department.  We know what is important to members and they will accept and respect our advice.”

As Scotland prepares for a new political dawn, the profession might just find the public sector to be a surprising and instructive example of how to cope with change and grasp new opportunities.