Eight years ago I walked into a meeting at the law society a bit late, and heard my name called I said yes thinking it was a roll call but it was an election to the position of the London and Home Counties branch secretary. Being too embarrassed to say anything I accepted the post, for my sins I don’t think I even knew who SLG (known as LGG then) was and certainly had no idea of what it did and here I am today.

My theme this year is you our members and there are 5 elements, which make up that theme:

• Relationships
• Representation
• Communication
• Transparency
• Succession

With the advent of the Legal Services Act the Law Society from whom we get our funding will become a leaner body potentially with less funding to give away. The Law Society Council upon which we have 2 seats will be shrinking with an emphasis on geographical constituencies rather than Special Interest Groups such as SLG.

The Challenge to SLG will therefore be to re position ourselves within the new Law Society and Solicitors Regulation Authority whist retaining influence and funding. Numerically we are small in comparison to other groups in the same position so the challenge for you is to ask your colleagues to opt into and register with SLG. Presently we only have 50% of our membership registered

The Role of a solicitor or legal officer needs to be recognised and promoted as a thing of value and I want to raise our profile.

The Role of the Monitoring Officer, pressures and responsibilities of the post have changed dramatically since it was first created with the passing of new legislation - SLG are lobbying for it to become mandatory for there to be a qualification for the office to maintain standards and confidence in the role – but to also develop the Monitoring Officers of the future.

With the Legal Services Act came the ability for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to give differential rates on Practicing Certificates – this is something which needs to be explored as many of us face having no certificate due to cut backs in local authorities legal budget.

We also need to have a fresh look at our relationships with other bodies such as the LGA, ACSeS, Central Government, Commerce and Industry and others who represent or influence local government

If there is a matter where local government legal issues are concerned SLG should be the first port of call as we are the experts.

Stephen Turner and Guy Goodman have developed the “Lead Professional” into the National Knowledge Network but to improve and make this work we need input from you our members. Through the SIGs we intend to increase our responses to consultation papers so if you are responding within your authority, send your response to Stephen Turner as well.

Communication is something we do well as a group but we can always do better. We (the NEC) need to understand what you our members want and conversely you need to know what we do.

Therefore, details of our quarterly meetings, Agenda and Minutes will be posted on the website.

The agendas will continue to be circulated to the 9 Branch Executives but they will be sent earlier so that the Branch Representative can seek local views on national issues and relay them to the NEC. Additionally this will give you the opportunity to lobby your NEC representative on any points you want to raise at our meetings.

I also want to hear from you and will be sending out a short questionnaire of no more than 15 questions through the Branch Secretaries. The responses will help to plan for the next 12 months, 3 years and beyond.

And finally a few words about the future, two years ago SLG opened its doors by creating associate members. This is an area, which I am keen to develop. I am pleased to see that associates play an active role at branch level.

We need you and all members of SLG to become involved in your branch and the NEC as without new faces and ideas coming through we will stagnate and wither.

We also need to create the opportunities for people to be trained within Local Government and to keep those trainees when the contract comes to an end. I would also encourage you wherever possible to give Trainees time to attend SLG events.

It is an honour to have been elected Chairman and I hope to serve you to the best of my abilities over the coming 12 months.

Suzanne Bond
Chairman SLG ltd