James Berry

James has worked in local government for a number of years and advises on public procurement, commercial contracts and governance.

James has worked in-house in borough, county and most recently a unitary authority and has also advised Local Enterprise Partnerships, Freeports and National Park Authorities. He has extensive experience in understanding the key concerns of public sector clients, providing pragmatic, practical, commercially focused and effective advice.

James is a member of the Procurement Lawyers Association and the Society for Computer Lawyers and participates in the firms internal Procurement and AI Working Groups.

James’ role:

James advises on a wide breadth of public sector procurement activities including social care, IT, education, health, catering and concessions contracts.

He advises on the full procurement cycle from the development of the procurement strategy and planning, reviewing specifications/statement of requirements, drafting the contract (including Dynamic Purchasing Agreements as well as single and multi-supplier frameworks), drafting the Invitation to Tender, and providing support during the tender process including answering clarification question and responding to Tenderer’s complaints during the Standstill period. Post award, he also advised on contract management, default and breach, variations (including under regulation 72 of PCR 2015).

James also has experience of advising on local authority governance such as advising on the establishment of corporate oversight of local authority trading companies, drafting Contract and Procurement Rules and drafting schemes of delegation.

James has advised on grant agreements, joint working and partnership arrangements in the public sector (i.e. joint procurement arrangements and arrangements under s75 of the NHS Act 2006) and secondment arrangements / arrangements under s113 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Skills and strengths:

Having worked in-house for many years, James intuitively works in a collaborative manner with clients and understand the time and cost pressures that public sector bodies are under when progressing matters. He appreciates the need to clearly explain complex legal issues in an understandable way and supports knowledge transfer to clients to support efficient delivery of projects.