Richard Auton (Director)

Director

Richard joined Walker Morris in 2001 specialising in Public Sector Law and Projects. Prior to that Richard had spent over 25 years in local government working for Devon, West Glamorgan, North Yorkshire and Norfolk County Councils. From 1989 to 2001 Richard was Director of Law and Administration / City Clerk with Norwich City Council. He was the statutory Monitoring Officer and, for a period was also Acting Chief Executive. Whilst at Norwich he was responsible for the outsourcing of the Council’s DLO, project leader for a pathfinder e-government project and the East of England Landmark Millennium project, the Forum.

Richard has advised both public and private sector organisations on a large number of PFI and PPP projects in various sectors including leisure (Uttlesford, Brent and Lewisham PFIs), emergency services (Lancashire and North East Fire and the Dorset Emergency Services PFIs), waste (Lancashire and Central Berkshire PFI), Regeneration (Wakefield Waterfront) and housing (Hull Decent Homes). He also advised on a number of major strategic partnerships including the award winning Rotherham Connected project and a number of public sector IT contracts including advising a contractor as part of the National Integrated Patient Records Project.

Richard also advises on a wide range of local government and public law matters including, vires constitutional and governance issues, delivery vehicles and joint working arrangements between public bodies. He has carried out Local Investigations for Monitoring Officers in respect of breaches of the Members’ code of Conduct. Richard also regularly advises on Councils and other public sector bodies on Public Procurement issues.

Richard is a regular speaker on local government law and procurement issues in the UK and the Republic of Ireland for such bodies as the SLG Annual Weekend School, the CIPFA Better Governance Forum and Performance Improvement Network and the Association of Public Excellence. Richard has also co-authored guidance for the 4Ps on shared services options for local Authorities.