Last updated: 07 May 2010
The initial meeting between the departmental team and the OPC team will normally involve only the core of the departmental team - those who will be involved in regular contact with OPC; but it is useful if everyone working on the departmental team knows and understands what Counsel’s role is, and has an opportunity to learn from them about Bill work.
So it is usual, soon after the shape of a forthcoming legislative programme becomes clear, for the National School of Government [External website] to arrange a series of seminars for new Bill teams. The OPC team which is allocated to a Bill normally contribute to the event for the Bill to which they have been allocated.
The lessons learned exercises that have been run on Bill projects have shown how important it is to ensure that everyone who is working on a Bill has received training on the process
Counsel will frequently offer to contribute to training events for the Bill team. Sometimes it is useful to run refreshers on different aspects of the process as the time for them draws near eg preparing explanatory notes, getting the Bill through committee, the second House and “ping-pong”. A department should feel free to ask members of the OPC team for their Bill to do things of this sort.
