TNAG-0923-FCO40-1141-Secondments-from-Diplomatic-Service-and-Home-Civil-Service-t-1980 — Page 101

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(iv)

(v)

(vi)

(vii)

one of the best of my local Chinese Crown Counsel resigned to join Lo & Lo at a saary (before commission) approximately double his government salary;

the SCC who specialised in building contract work (so much so that he was invited to lecture to the private sector at a recent regional symposium) decided not to renew his contract and returned to his home country;

the Police Legal Adviser (who advises the police on all their disciplinary and other civil matters) resigned last May; his successor has (I believe) decided to look for a job when on leave next summer; this job is very important for a series of bad decisions could adversely affect police morale quite seriously;

the above are representative only and I could cite other examples.

Some Relevant Considerations

(a)

(b)

It is unnecessary to emphasise the importance to any Government in both social and financial terms of having a good legal service. As society becomes more sophisticated and complex not only do the legal and other problems follow suit, but the social and financial consequences of defective drafting or bad advice become more serious. The need for specialisation and expertise by the lawyer also becomes greater. The problem is not to obtain opinions; it is to be sure that in complex or difficult cases the lawyer giving them is good enough to get it right. Just as the Drafting Section is short of talent and experience, so too in the Civil and Prosecutions Sections there are a limited number of counsel, and many of them the more junior, capable of undertaking the most difficult work (commercial crime; ICAC; building contracts; textile quota breaches etc.).

Thus, for instance, a CC (age 31, salary $7,500) is currently having to consider whether the contractor building the Aberdeen Tunnel is entitled to terminate the contract and either leave the site or be remunerated at 1980 (as opposed to 1977) rates. A wrong decision could result in very long delays in completion of a socially very important project or in claims against Government totalling over $100 million. Obviously in this case specialist advice outside Chambers and consideration by myself and the Crown Solicitor is necessary. But in practice even in this case (and certainly in others not quite so serious) Government is dependent to a large extent on work done at his level because (i) the law contains a series of specialities each with their own expertise, often differing as much as do neurology and gynaecology, and (ii) checking and supervision is