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Initial contact

On the first occasion that a service is required of OPC in connection with a Bill project the instructions should be sent to 1st PC. At that stage 1st PC will identify a Counsel who will be available to lead the OPC team on the project. Sometimes when advice or other service is sought at an early stage, 1st PC or 2nd PC, will provide the service pending the allocation of another Counsel to lead the OPC end of the project.

Either 1st PC (or 2nd PC) or the Counsel allocated to lead the OPC team will let the department know, as soon as possible after the request is received, who is dealing with a particular request. OPC aims to respond to each new request within a week, with some initial information about how it is being be dealt with, and by whom.

When the leader of the OPC team has been identified at least one other Counsel will be added to the team, possibly immediately. Things work very much better if the OPC team can be identified from the beginning, rather than have to be added to or changed later as the work on a project unexpectedly expands or is prolonged.

It is often difficult or impossible to speed the delivery of a Bill by adding Counsel to the OPC team late in the day. And the need for a coherent approach to Bill drafting, as well as other practical considerations, mean that - depending on the subject-matter - there are also practical limits on the size of the OPC team that can work on a single Bill.