Parliamentary Counsel

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What does OPC do?

OPC provides a number of different services in response to requests from departments. Authority given by or on behalf of PB Committee is required for Counsel to be committed to a particular Bill project.⁶ But it is always possible to approach OPC in advance for some preliminary assistance with a project wherever that is sensible eg in order to facilitate the proper planning of the legislative programme. The early involvement of OPC in a proposed project can avoid problems at a later stage.

In addition, it is common, in order to be able to meet the deadlines for the legislative programme, for it to be necessary in at least some cases to anticipate formal authority from L Committee⁷ for the commitment of OPC resources to particular tasks.

A request to OPC for the provision of services should take the form of instructions, but the instructions can be more or less formal, according to the service required and the circumstances. For some matters they do not need to be in writing.⁸

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6. Other than those, like the Finance Bill, which are outside the PB Committee system.
7. In addition, PB Committee’s main decisions on the legislative programme need to be endorsed (with or without modifications) by Cabinet, but it is not usually practicable to await that decision before starting work on a Bill.
8. So it is usual for instructions to draft a Bill to be in writing and relatively formal. Instructions to advise on Parliamentary procedure may be oral or relatively informal, or they may simply be inferred from the continuing relationship between the OPC team allocated to a project and the departmental Bill team.