The Head of Legal Services and Solicitor to the Council is Quentin Baker.
Legal Services is composed of a team of experienced public sector legal professionals who provide proactive and high quality legal advice and opinion to the Council and other public bodies on a broad range of legal matters, which include:
- Contracts and commercial agreements.
- Education and social care legal advice.
- Property, highways and planning issues.
- Employment legislation.
- Corporate legal advice to the Council.
Legal Services also has a key role to play in monitoring the activities of the Council to contribute to the legal governance of the authority in its decision making and other activities. To enable these responsibilities to be undertaken, in addition to leading the Council's Legal Service, the Head of Legal Services also fulfils the statutory role of Monitoring Officer.
In this statutory role, the Head of Legal Services is responsible for:
- Advising on issues relating to the standards and conduct of County Councillors.
- Supporting the functioning of the Council's Standards Committee with the discharge of its role to monitor and promote ethical governance within the Council.
- In conjunction with the Chief Executive and Democratic and Members' Services, monitoring and reviewing the operation of the Council’s Constitution, to ensure that the aims and principles of the Constitution are given full effect and making recommendations, where appropriate, for improvements to better achieve these purposes.