Office of the Attorney General Annual Report 2008 Incorporating the

Progress achieved

During 2008 the Chief State Solicitor’s Office continued to focus on the development, enhancement and refinement of legal services in areas of importance to client Departments and Offices. The primary focus during the year, in consultation with client Departments, was on identifying areas of work which are expanding an required specialist legal services, such as Commercial Contracts, Commercial and Constitutional litigation, European Arrest Warrant applications, Mutual Assistance requests, Civil Service employment cases, Garda litigation, Conveyancing for Government Departments and Offices and asylum, immigration and repatriation work.

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  Redeployment of two Legal Executives to the Justice and Common Law Division to deal with Garda Compensation cases.
  
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  Redeployment of a Solicitor to, inter alia, advice on Garda Compensation cases.
  
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  Redeployment of a Legal Executive to the Justice and Common Law Division to deal with Mutual Assistance requests.
  
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  Redeployment of a Solicitor to deal with European Arrest Warrant applications.
  
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  Redeployment of a Solicitor to deal with Commercial Contracts.
  
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  Continued provision of a specialised service handling asylum, immigration and repatriation work
  
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  Continued operation of a special unit to deal with residential abuse litigation.
  
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  Continued operation of a team to deal with day school abuse litigation.
  
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  Continued operation of dedicated teams to deal with special needs, child welfare and nursing home charges litigation.
  
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  Continued operation on an on-call panel to deal with European Arrest Warrants, Extraditions, habeas corpus applications and other urgent matters in Court, out of office hours.
  

During 2008 the Office continued to liaise both formally and informally with clients in regard to matters relating to service delivery. The Office initiated the process of reviewing the Customer Charter and Customer Action Plan taking account of the separate follow-up CSSO Customer satisfaction survey report undertaken in 2007, the report of the review of Charters published by Fitzpatrick Associates in June, 2007 and the 2008 Edition of Guidelines for the preparation of Customer Charters & Customer Action Plans/Guides. By end-2008 significant progress had been made in developing a new Customer Charter 2008 – 2010 and new Customer Action Plan 2008 – 2010.

A report on the project to carry out comparisons with the Advisory function in the Merrion Street Office and the legal function in the Chief State Solicitor's Office is set out in Chapter 4 of this Report.

During 2008 legal staff in the CSSO continued to promote a culture of knowledge sharing, underpinning the delivery of legal advice to Government, Departments and Offices through attendance and participation in Legal Issues meetings and contributing to the preparation of Legal Reference Guides. Also work on identifying further communities of practice which would be supported by the Offices to enhance knowledge-sharing in critical legal areas continued during the year. The CSSO Library and Know-how Unit continued to promote legal research skills and assist staff in attaining a level of proficiency in the use of electronic sources of legal information. CSSO staff also participated in the Knowledge Management Committee and the Know-how Sub-Committee in the context of the development of a new Office-wide knowledge management strategy.

During 2008 the CSSO actively contributed to the further embedding and implementation of formal risk management policies within the Office. Throughout the year risk related matters were discussed at Divisional and Section meetings and local and Legal MAC meetings. Divisional Heads attended and contributed to meetings of the joint Merrion Street Office / CSSO Risk Management Committee in the context of the Committee’s implementation of an Office-wide risk management strategy including a risk policy, a corporate risk register and individual Group and Business Unit risk registers. Divisional Heads reviewed risk registers in the latter part of 2008 and completed an assurance statement in this regard in line with the risk management policy. The CSSO also participated in meetings held with private sector organisations with a view to determining what might be learned in their approaches to managing risk in these organisations.

Throughout 2008 the CSSO participated in the Office’s Resource Allocation Business Planning (RAB) Project in the further development and finalisation of framework models to determine notional cost for the provision of legal services across Divisions and Sections having regard to trends in workloads and complexity and volume. The models explore the link between financial Estimates and Strategy Statements to the outputs of the Office.

In 2008 legal staff in the CSSO participated in the process of embedding the new PMDS model including Upward Feedback within the Office. At the beginning of the year individual Role Profile Forms were agreed with Division and Section Heads, Interim Reviews were carried out mid-year and a significant number of annual reviews were completed by year-end. PMDS training was provided as appropriate to new legal staff within 1 to 2 months of arrival in the Office.

During the year CSSO staff attended regular review meetings with Advisory Counsel in the Merrion Street Office and officials in the relevant Departments in the context of managing litigation, particularly mass claims, in a strategic manner. Also, close liaison was maintained between the CSSO and the State Claims Agency in regard to the management of childhood abuse litigation.

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  The provision of an asylum law litigation service to support the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the immigration / asylum agencies.
  
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  The provision of dedicated teams to handle special needs, child welfare and nursing home charges litigation.
  
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  Actively handling and defending where appropriate, the Office’s current caseload of residential and day school abuse cases.
  
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  Actively handling and defending where appropriate, the civil servant employment law caseload.
  
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  Actively handling and defending where appropriate, all civil proceedings taken against An Garda Síochána or members of An Garda Síochána.
  

During 2008 legal staff in the CSSO continued to co-operate with Advisory Counsel in the Merrion Street Office in the provision of a direction of legal strategy as appropriate to ensure the ongoing effective management of European Court of Justice (ECJ) litigation. This involved regular review meetings with Advisory Counsel and Departmental officials. Annex J of this Report sets out details of some important cases before the ECJ in 2008.

Under the terms of the agreement with the State Solicitors Association for the transfer of responsibility for the local State solicitor service to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions pursuant to the Nally Report, State Solicitors continued to deal with some civil work up to end-June, 2008. The Office actively managed the remaining work until that date and used the interim period to form a view on the amount of work involved and the requirement for external providers.

Throughout 2008 the Office continued to operate the on-call legal panel to manage issues which arise out of hours. During the year additional legal staff were made available for the on-call panel.

During 2008 the CSSO in conjunction with the Merrion Street Office made significant progress to finalise the Report of the joint AGO/CSSO Value for Money and Policy Review (VFM & P) in respect of the Attorney General’s Scheme. Also progress was made during the year to complete Reports on the Reviews of Stenographer’s Services and Costs Recovery.