Treasury Solicitor's Department to get face lift

The Treasury Solicitor's Department (TSol), the body that provides legal services to the majority of central government, is to change its name to the Government Legal Department this coming April.

Treasury solicitor Jonathan Jones said that changing the department's name was an important step in its evolution. "It signifies our change in size and remit, and describes clearly what we are and what we do as a department," he added.

TSol has been through a period of significant change during the last two years. It now provides most of the government's litigation and employment law services, as well as advisory teams for 11 Whitehall departments, along with a specialist Commercial Law Group and European law division.

The department has also doubled in size to approximately 2,000 staff, based in London, Bristol, Manchester, Warrington and Leeds.

"My vision is of a department which is trusted by government to provide consistently excellent and value for money services, which is known throughout the legal profession for the quality of our legal work, and provides the best possible careers and employment offer for our people. I am confident that the Government Legal Department will deliver that vision," said Jones.

The Attorney General, Jeremy Wright QC MP, welcomed the adoption of the new name: "This is an important milestone, reflecting the impressive work that has taken place in bringing the majority of government legal services into a single organisation.

"Combining all these different legal teams offers more diverse career opportunities for lawyers and has clear potential to provide both higher quality legal services for government and efficiencies for the taxpayer, in line with this government's broader approach to reforming the civil service."

However, legal practitioners dealing with the soon to be re-branded department may hardly notice any difference. The Government Legal Department will continue to litigate in the name of the Treasury Solicitor, and legal documents will still be served on the Treasury Solicitor at his current offices at One Kemble Street, London.

SJ asked TSol how much this rebranding was set to cost.

A spokesperson for the department said: "The name change will be carried out at minimal cost with the majority of the work in-house. There will be a new logo when the new name goes live, but this will just be a change of the words from Treasury Solicitor’s Department to the new name, so no external design agency will be engaged. The same purple stripe will be retained. 

"In line with advice from the Cabinet Office, current stocks will be used up before commissioning new stocks with the revised name. Electronic templates on invoices,etc will be updated in time for the 'go live' date."

John van der Luit-Drummond is legal reporter for Solicitors Journal