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How are services obtained from OPC? 

A request to OPC for the provision of services should be made to 1st PC unless it relates to a project that is in progress and has already been allocated to a particular Counsel.

The departmental legal adviser will wish to be involved in the request. However, it does not follow that all subsequent dealings with OPC have to take place through the department’s lawyers. The department should make arrangements with the Counsel allocated to their work, and with their own lawyers, about the most suitable lines of communication with Counsel on different topics.

The initial request to OPC for services for a particular project should begin by setting out—

• the nature of the whole project and its likely scale;
• anything that is known about the timetable and deadlines that are likely to apply to the project as a whole; and
• the department’s understanding of the current status of the project in the programme and its importance to the Government.

This is because it is much better for 1st PC to have as much information as possible to facilitate a determination of—

• the size of the OPC team that will eventually be needed to handle the project;
• when Counsel will need to be available to work on it; and
• the experience that will be needed by the Counsel allocated to the team.

It is also important, in the interests of the department as well as OPC, that any predictions that are made in the initial request to OPC for the provision of services are as realistic and as accurate as possible. Projects often run into difficulties if they are planned on the basis of over-optimistic assumptions about the resources needed to complete them, or about the deadlines for instructions that it will be possible to meet in practice. Difficulties of this sort can have a seriously disruptive effect both on the project in question and on other projects.

Similarly, wherever a request for a particular service is sent to OPC in connection with a project on which work has already begun, it should always be made clear - unless it already is - both whether there is a deadline that applies to the provision of the service and (if so) what it is.

The initial request for a service should give contact details for the officials who are involved in the instructing process and their availability. There should always be someone available to answer questions in the period immediately following the delivery of instructions, when the allocated Counsel are likely to be trying to get to grips with them. These contact details of team members should be kept up to date with prompt information about any changes. Counsel accept an obligation to reciprocate with prompt information about their own contact details and availability.

More guidance about what should be included in the instructions for the provision of particular services is outlined in the Instructing OPC section.