50 Annual Report
Quantity advisory
The Commission has a developing role in providing advice to Ministers
and government agencies on the design, and adherence to legal
principles, of legislation being prepared for and presented to the House.
This role is primarily performed through the support that the
Commission provides to the Legislation Design Committee (LDC) and
the Legislation Advisory Committee (LAC).
Legislation Design Committee
Under Cabinet directive, LDC provides departments with high level
advice on the architecture of legislation referred by the department or
the Cabinet Office. The primary reason for referral is to ensure advice
is given early on the framework of new legislation, which in turn assists
compliance with the LAC Guidelines. LAC receives legislative proposals
too late to be effective in advising on the architecture of legislation.
The President of the Commission chairs the LDC, which provided advice
on 16 legislative design initiatives in the last year.
Legislation Advisory Committee
The Law Commission provides reports to LAC on every Government
bill introduced to Parliament, based on the LAC Guidelines for best
practice. The current Chair of LAC is also the President of the Law
Commission. There were 44 full reports provided to LAC in the 2007/08
year, plus comments on 5 other bills. LAC provided follow-up
submissions to agencies, Ministers or Select Committees on 17 bills,
which were generally prepared in the Commission.
The quantity of advisory items provided by the Commission is
determined by the number of requests for advice that the Commission
receives, and/or the number of occasions on which we consider
it appropriate and necessary to offer advice. At the commencement of
the year, the Commission expected to provide between five and ten
items of advice through the LDC and between 20 and 30 reports to the
LAC. As noted above, the actual workload was considerably more than
this estimate.
Other advisory work
In addition to the work of the two executive committees, the Commission
has provided advice directly to Government on other matters pertaining
to policy and/or legislation. The burden of this work usually falls
on Commissioners. In 2007/08, of the total substantive hours
available for project work, Commissioners expended 20% of this time
on advisory work.