HC Deb 14 June 1877 vol 234 cc1759-61
MR. SERJEANT SPINKS (for Sir HENRY HOLLAND)

asked the Secretary to the Treasury, What steps, if any, have been taken to give effect to the Reports of the Departmental Committee on the system upon which the Legal Business of the Government is conducted?

MR. W. H. SMITH

The Reports of the Committee, three in number, are divisible as follows:—1. Relating to the remuneration of the Law Officers. The recommendation of the Committee have been generally adopted. A new Treasury Minute amending the definition of "contentious business," as suggested by the Committee, has been issued, and the more comprehensive definition has had the effect, as was contemplated by the Committee, of obviating some questions between the Law Officers and the several Government Departments. 2. (Reports 2 and 3.) Relating to the legal business of the several Government Departments. Of the several Departments reported on by the Committee, the following were the subject of special recommendations:—Office of Works, War Office, Admiralty; while it was suggested that, on the occurence of a vacancy in the office of Queen's Proctor, the business should be transferred to the Department of the Solicitor of the Treasury. The recommendations of the Committee with respect to all the above-mentioned Departments have been carried into effect. The Solicitorships of the Office of Works and of the Admiralty, and the Assistant Solicitorship of the War Office have been abolished, and the Treasury Solicitor has been appointed Queen's Proctor, in which capacity he conducts all the business relating to the administration of the personal estates of intestates, as well as the duties imposed on that officer by statute in reference to intervention in Divorce matters. The financial results of the above change are as follows (omitting the results in respect of the Queen's Proctor's business, as sufficient time has not yet elapsed to test the financial working of the new arrangement, the late Queen's Proctor having been remunerated by bills of cost, not by salary):—Under the old system the legal Staff of the Office of Works cost, for salaries only, £2,985; War Office, £2,850; Admiralty, £2,900—£8,735. The legal work of the above Departments is now transacted in the Department of the Solicitor to the Treasury at a cost of £6,000, showing a saving of £2,735, or over 30 per cent. The above comparison is limited to salaries only. There is, however, little doubt that the concentration of the above legal business under the Treasury Solicitor will lead to a reduction in the ordinary legal charges.