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Housekeeping matters

The main thing that needs to be included in the final section is the contact details and availability of the Bill team members.

Other things might include for example any arrangements for Bill training events for the team.

Where a draft of a Bill contains provisions extending or otherwise relating to Scotland or Northern Ireland, the OPC team will assume that it is appropriate to copy that draft and all subsequent relevant drafts (together with the covering correspondence) to, as the case may require, one or both of the following—

• the team of drafters in the Office of the Scottish Parliamentary Counsel ("OSPC") which is designated to work on UK matters (known as Scottish Parliamentary Counsel (UK) and referred to subsequently as "SPC(UK)"). In general, these drafters take Instructions from the Office of the Solicitor to the Advocate General for Scotland ("OSAG"), and, in this capacity, work to the UK Government, rather than to the Scottish Executive;
• the Office of the Legislative Counsel in Belfast (who work to the Executive).

However the OPC will mention to the departmental team that that is what it is proposing to do before the first occasion on which a draft or correspondence is copied to a particular drafting Office but will then follow that practice for that Office unless asked to stop.

Currently, there are no arrangements for sending correspondence on a regular basis to the Welsh Legislative Counsel, who work exclusively to the Welsh Assembly Government ("WAG"), or indeed to lawyers in the Wales Office.

It is helpful for the instructions to make clear in this section whether the departmental team is content for the OPC team to operate from the beginning on the assumption outlined above, and (if not) to set out what is wanted. If anything special is wanted for sending copies to those interested in provisions applying to Wales, the instructions should also set that out.

It is for departmental teams to set up their own communications about the Bill with interested colleagues in the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices and, outside the drafting offices, in the devolved administrations.

Unless told otherwise in this section of the instructions, the OPC team will assume that a response to a set of instructions should be sent to everyone on the copy list for the email covering the instructions.