Parliamentary Counsel Office
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Parliamentary Counsel Office (PCO) is a team of lawyers who draft legislation for the Parliament of the United Kingdom, principally government bills, but also certain Orders in Council and other secondary legislation.
The Office was established in 1869 as part of HM Treasury, then moved to the Civil Service Department in 1969. Since 1980, it has been part of the Cabinet Office. It is led by the First Parliamentary Counsel: from 2006 this is Stephen Laws, CB, who succeeded Sir Geoffrey Bowman, KCB.
[edit] History
The Parliamentary Counsel Office was established in 1869.
Until the end of the 18th century, most Acts of Parliament were drafted either by the judges, or by practising lawyers, or by Members of Parliament themselves.
It was Pitt who, at about that time, first employed a member of the Bar as Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury. In 1833 the then holder of that position described his duties as 'to draw or settle all the Bills that belong to Government in the Department of the Treasury'. But he went on to say that he in fact produced Bills for a number of other Departments.
However, many Bills continued to be drafted by members of the Bar in private practice. One of them, Henry Thring, made a special study of legislative drafting. He came to the conclusion that 'the subjects of Acts of Parliament, as well as the provisions by which the law is enforced, would admit of being reduced to a certain degree of uniformity; that the proper mode of sifting the materials and of arranging the clauses can be explained; and that the form of expressing the enactments might also be the subject of regulation'.
Thring was highly thought of. Eventually, on 8th February 1869, a Treasury Minute was issued establishing the PCO and appointing Thring as its full-time head, with the title of Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury.
Writing in 1901, the then First Parliamentary Counsel, Sir Courtenay Ilbert, described the permanent staff of the PCO as consisting of 'the Parliamentary Counsel [i.e. himself] and the Assistant Parliamentary Counsel, with three shorthand writers, an office-keeper, and an office boy'.
A third Parliamentary Counsel was appointed in 1917 and a fourth in 1930. By 1961 the PCO consisted of 16 full-time drafters, all barristers, with supporting staff to match. Today there are around 60 Counsel and around 25 support staff.
The PCO formed part of the Treasury for the first 100 years of its existence. Some of the Treasury's functions were transferred to the newly established Civil Service Department in 1969. At that time the PCO was attached to the new Department and changed its name from 'Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury'.
When the Civil Service Department was disbanded in 1980, the PCO became part of the Cabinet Office.
