Corporate report

What we do

Published 9 June 2022

Our principal activities are delivered as follows:

Advisory

GLD has expert advisory teams specialising in the work of their client department, providing risk-based and solution-focused legal advice. GLD lawyers are crucial throughout the lifecycle of government policy. They advise on and draft legislation and work to take it through Parliament; advising departments and ministers on the legal implications of government policy, and ensuring it stands up to Parliamentary scrutiny.

Litigation

GLD’s Litigation Group is comprised of 3 divisions: Defence and Security, Home Office and Immigration, and Justice and Development. Litigation lawyers handle high profile public and private law litigation for central government departments, security agencies, and other public bodies; including UK military and security bodies.

The divisions also undertake inquest, inquiry and injunctive work for GLD’s clients. Our litigation teams are currently handling approximately 22,000 pieces of litigation.

Employment

As one of the largest employment law practices in the country, GLD’s Employment Group advise on complex and fast-moving legal areas including: claims for unfair dismissal and relating to discrimination; pay issues; contractual issues and terms and conditions; and whistleblowing claims.

The TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment) and Transactional Hub provides specialist advice on employment and pensions issues to help manage employment-related risks, while the Industrial Hub advises on trade union matters and industrial action. The National Security Hub manages advice work and litigation claims requiring a knowledge of security vetting or the management of protected material.

Commercial

The Commercial Law Group (CLGp) provides expert advice on transactional, litigation, property and advisory commercial legal matters. Transactional and advisory teams advise government departments on their commercial work, ensuring value for money in the purchase of goods and services for the public sector.

The litigation and dispute resolution team supports the government in high profile legal claims, and saves taxpayer money by pursuing alternative forums (mediation, adjudication). The GLD Property Hub provides strategic commercial property advice, and supports government departments and agencies via training on property issues.

Statutory Instrument Hub

The Statutory Instrument (SI) Hub is the GLD’s specialist statutory instrument drafting service and Centre of Excellence for secondary legislation, with 30 lawyers drafting secondary legislation for all of GLD’s client departments.

The SI Hub Centre of Excellence makes a major contribution to helping lawyers across GLD improve the quality of their drafting, through its structured SI training programme, the annual SI conference and drafting guidance.

The Finance, Operations and Digital, and Strategy, People and Culture Divisions

The Finance, Operations and Digital, and Strategy, People and Culture Divisions are responsible for developing the department’s strategy and plans and leading and co-ordinating programmes of activity across the department to deliver cost effective legal and support services that address the needs of our clients and staff.

This includes the provision of corporate services covering governance and strategy, communications and engagement, finance, planning and performance, human resources, procurement, facilities management, security, information and communications technology (ICT), business assurance and resilience, and library and records management services.

Bona Vacantia Division

Bona Vacantia Division, on behalf of the Crown’s Nominee, administers the estates of people who die intestate and without relatives entitled to inherit, and collects the assets of dissolved companies and failed trusts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, except in the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster.

The costs of the Division are recovered from the estates and assets it administers. The proceeds of bona vacantia are accounted for in the Crown’s Nominee Accounts and separately notified to Parliament as prescribed in the Treasury Solicitor (Crown’s Nominee) Rules 1997 (SI.1997/2870).

The Knowledge, Capability and Innovation Division

The Knowledge, Capability and Innovation Division lead on developing the department’s integrated Legal Knowledge, Capability and Innovation Strategy, working with legal divisions to professionalise legal knowledge and learning activity and to develop innovative and flexible approaches to meeting client needs.

GLD also has 15 Centres of Excellence; formal networks of lawyers who have recognised expertise in an area of law or legal practice that has relevance across a number of GLD divisions and teams.

Case Study: Legal Services Panel

In December 2021 the new Legal Services Panel was successfully awarded. The Panel is a strategically important part of delivering quality and value for money legal services to central government departments and other public sector bodies over a 4 year period with a total value of £430m, split across 12 suppliers on Lot 1: general legal services and 7 suppliers on Lot 2: finance and complex legal services.

The procurement process was undertaken via a successful collaborative process between GLD and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), with vital input and engagement from the wider Government Legal Profession and Government Commercial Function.

Commercial Law Group and Treasury Legal Advisers led on the respective Lots, and numerous GLD colleagues volunteered their invaluable time and expertise, as corporate contributions, in order to assist with the design of the Panel (including drafting the Specification, Finance Model and evaluation criteria) as well as assisting with the procurement process itself (in particular evaluating written bids and interviewing the shortlisted bidders).

The project faced a number of challenges including being put ‘on hold’ for 10 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, changes in Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) and Project Team members following the project’s resurrection and a procurement challenge raised and resolved during the standstill period.

The Commercial Law Group provided significant support throughout including advising CCS throughout (as the Contracting Authority) and drafted the suite of contract documents. The new Panel is vital to GLD’s ability to help the government to govern well, within the rule of law.

Case Study: COVID-19 International Travel and Operator Liability Regulations

A key feature of the government’s response to controlling the spread of COVID-19 was the imposition of unprecedented restrictions on people entering the UK. These included passenger information obligations, testing requirements, self-isolation, hotel quarantine, differing requirements for vaccinated and unvaccinated passengers, and obligations on operators.

In May 2021, the regime which had been in place since 2020 was replaced by a new “traffic light” system which applied different restrictions to different countries, depending on whether they were regarded as “red”, “amber” or “green” risk. This was contained in new, lengthy (91 pages) and highly complex legislation – the International Travel and Operator Liability Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/582) – drafted by GLD’s legislative drafting team, the SI Hub, in close partnership with lawyers in the Department for Transport (DfT) and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

The Regulations were frequently updated throughout the year, to repeatedly demanding time frames, in response to changing circumstances in the UK and worldwide. In total, the Regulations were amended 29 times (a further 225 pages of legislation) to deal with, among other things, changes to risk assessments in different countries, vaccine rollouts domestically and overseas, developments in testing technology, new variants, and specific arrangements for key workers and for important events such as COP26. They were revoked in March 2022.

We achieved this through the fantastic work of many lawyers in the SI Hub and the legal teams at DHSC and DfT, working at speed, communicating efficiently and professionally, and co-ordinating additional legal contributions from other departments including FCDO, the Department for International Trade (DIT), Home Office and Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The Regulations reflect some very difficult decisions balancing public health issues with the economic and social consequences of restrictions, and the team collaborated on solution-focused legal risk advice on a wide range of issues to inform the legislative changes.

Each person in this highly flexible team was conscious of their role in delivery, and respected the expertise of their colleagues. The exceptional teamwork, personal support for each other, good humour and resilience displayed by the team across the year were critical to the success in delivering this project.

Overall, at least 32 GLD lawyers worked in the core legal team over the year (7 from the SI Hub, 11 from DfT Legal Advisers (DfTLA) and 14 from DHSC Legal Advisers (DHSCLA)), supported by additional lawyers with specialist expertise on different modes of transport in DfTLA, other DHSCLA lawyers working on COVID-19 measures, and lawyers across government.