We advised Wigan Council in relation to Together for Adoption, a Regional Adoption Agency, involving Wigan and four neighbouring local authorities working in collaboration.
The authorities were party to a previous agreement which we updated to reflect a different operating model. This was a multi-disciplinary project requiring advice on public procurement, commercial, data protection and employment and pensions. The procurement advice was particularly important.
We provided a joint legal opinion which was addressed to all five councils on the position under the procurement rules, because it was an issue for all of them.
Our advice looked at whether or not the agreement met the definition of a public contract for the purposes of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and, if it did, whether the requirements for reliance upon the exemption set out in Regulation 12(7) applied. We also considered possible mitigating steps including the addition of clauses within the new agreement to allocate and share this risk as between the authorities.
