Whitehall’s central legal services provider the Treasury Solicitor’s Department (TSol) is advertising for a new head to replace Paul Jenkins – at a salary increase of £15,000.

Jenkins has held the post of HM Procurator-General, Treasury Solicitor and Head of the Government Legal Service since 2006.

He is expected to leave the department in March and said: ‘I am retiring, a few months before my 60th birthday, at a time which fits best in terms of the development of the next stage of the shared legal service, which gives my successor a good run into the next general election period, having served longer than any other Treasury Solicitor in the last 40 years and the fourth-longest-serving Treasury Solicitor in the last 100 years.

‘The role has expanded - and continues to expand - considerably as the shared service develops.'

The Treasury Solicitor is senior personal legal adviser to the prime minister and head of 2,000 lawyers working across 180 departments and agencies in government.

‘The department is engaged in a programme of radical transformation, to create a major shared legal service for government, so we are looking for someone with an outstanding record of leadership, who will also play a leadership role more widely across the civil service,’ says the job advertisement.

‘I hope you will be excited by the opportunity which this post presents and if you think you fit the bill, we would like to hear from you,' it adds.

Jenkins is a practising barrister. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in July 1977 and joined the Government Legal Service in 1979. 

According to TSol senior staff pay data, Jenkins' pay range is between £160,000-£165,000. The new role is advertised at between £160,000-£180,000.

In addition the organisation has recently held a recruitment drive for 80 more full-time in-house lawyers taking it to a total of 640 solicitors and barristers.

Legal teams from the Home Office, the Department of Energy & Climate Change and the Department for Transport are set to merge with TSoL by March next year.