Three mid-Kent local authorities are to join forces in a shared legal services project that aims to save more than £250,000 a year.

Under the new model, legal staff at Swale, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells borough councils will remain based at their authorities but support each other in a ‘virtual’ team. A spokesman for Swale said the model will free up the team and allow ‘qualified staff to spend as much time on fee-earning activity as possible’. Each of the teams has between five and eight members of staff.

Three group managers will lead the teams locally and form a shared management team that will include a legal operations manager.

Set-up costs of the new way of working include a £25,000 computer system, £20,000 set aside for training and up to £4,000 a year for additional travel. This will be offset by forecast savings of £269,000 a year, 17% of current spending, through ‘redesign, revised management arrangements and procurement efficiencies’, a spokesman said. No staff cuts are planned at the moment.

Kent County Council is already known as a pace-setter in running local government legal services on commercial lines. Alasdair Robertson, head of business improvement at Maidstone, said: ‘We are seeing how we can best maximise Kent’s expertise, but it is not the same arrangement.’

Meanwhile, the scandal-hit London borough of Haringey is expanding its legal services department to 80, with five new appointments. Posts include assistant heads of legal services in social care, corporate and litigation, and commercial.