The Role of General Counsel in the Public Sector

Geoff Wild, Director of Governance & Law, Kent County Council

It is imperative that large organisations in the public sector, as well as the private sector, retain at all times a focus on good governance and upon the lawfulness of their actions. However, in periods where significant savings need to be achieved and organisational change delivered, it is even more important that law and governance are at the centre of the organisation. An absence of legal and constitutional input into top tier decision making and discussions leaves Members, Officers and the Local Authority open to risk that could be otherwise mitigated or avoided by early intervention. General Counsel (GC) acts as the authority's “conscience”, as a sounding-board and source of sound judgment on questions in which ethical issues often shade legal determinations. In summary, the GC is the organisation’s navigator when the GPS goes down.

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UK Management Government July 2015 Vol. 8, No. 32, Summer 2015

Geoff Wild

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Director of Governance & Law at Kent County Council, Geoff heads up one of the largest teams of local authority lawyers in the country, with 125 lawyers serving over 600 public sector clients nationwide and generating over £2.5m pa profit. It is designed

Kent County Council

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Kent County Council is one of the largest local authorities in the UK, responsible for governing the non-metropolitan county of Kent. It provides the upper tier of elected local government, below which are 12 district councils, and around 300 town and par

UK Management Government July 2015 Vol. 8, No. 32, Summer 2015

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