Corporate report

Who we are

Published 9 June 2022

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Who we are

The Government Legal Department (GLD) is a non-ministerial government department and executive agency providing legal services to the majority of government departments and other publicly funded bodies in England and Wales.

We are currently one of the largest legal organisations in the country, with around 3,000 staf, of whom the majority (c 2,200) are lawyers and paralegals based in more than 20 locations.

Our responsibilities include:

  • advising ministers and policymakers on domestic,public and private law, trade policy, international law and human rights
  • providing litigation services to government departments and public bodies, covering public and private law issues
  • drafting statutory instruments and other subordinate legislation
  • preparing instructions for bills to be drafted by Parliamentary Counsel and advising ministers and policymakers during the passage of bills through Parliament
  • providing legal services to support public inquiries
  • advising the Cabinet Office (CO) and Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) on cross-Civil Service wide employment issues and policies, as well as dealing with individual employment issues, including in the Employment Tribunal
  • supporting complex government procurement transactions and dispute resolution
  • collecting, managing and disposing of bona vacantia (ownerless personal and corporate property and other assets) on behalf of the Crown’s Nominee

Parliament

GLD also provides support to the Attorney General’s Ofice (AGO), which provides legal and policy advice to the Attorney General and the Solicitor General (the Law Oficers), and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI), the independent inspectorate of the Crown Prosecution Service.

The financial statements in this report:

…relate to activity carried out by the GLD in the year 2021-22 and are prepared under a direction issued by HMT, in accordance with Section 7(2) of the Government Resources and Accounts Act 2000.

Case Study: The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (the FTPA) was passed following the coalition agreement in 2010 which included a commitment to establish 5 year fixed-term Parliaments. There has only been one full 5 year parliamentary term under the FTPA (from 2010 to 2015). Early parliamentary general elections were called in 2017 and 2019 and, at the 2019 election, it was both a Conservative and a Labour manifesto commitment to repeal the FTPA.

Prior to the FTPA, the Prime Minister was generally free to decide when to call a general election within a maximum 5 year parliamentary term. The system was based on the exercise of the Sovereign’s prerogative powers to dissolve and call Parliament.

The GLD legal division, Cabinet Office Legal Advisers (COLA) worked with policy officials and Parliamentary Counsel on a Bill to reinstate the pre-2011 system for calling elections. The Bill gave rise to a number of challenging legal issues requiring careful legal analysis, including the revival of the prerogative powers to dissolve and call Parliament, and provision to confirm and preserve the non-justiciability of those prerogative powers.

These issues sparked a good deal of debate throughout the parliamentary stages of the Bill and before parliamentary committees, including the Joint Committee on the FTPA, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Lords’ Constitution Committee.

COLA worked closely with policy officials to brief ministers throughout the process, including on the purpose and effect of amendments as they were tabled by parliamentarians. The Bill has now received Royal Assent and become the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, and the prerogative powers to dissolve and call Parliament have been revived.

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