Structure
The office was run by the Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor's Office, a senior member of Her Majesty's Civil Service who also served as Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. The office he ran was initially small, consisting of five individuals; the Permanent Secretary, his personal secretary, the personal secretary to the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of Presentations (who advised the Lord Chancellor on the appointment of senior members of the Church of England) and the Secretary of Commissions (who advised the Lord Chancellor on the appointment of magistrates). The department stayed small compared to other ministerial departments; in the 1960s it had a staff of only 13 trained lawyers and a few secretaries. The passing of the Courts Act 1971 and the additional duties it gave to the Lord Chancellor's Department forced it to expand, and by the time it ceased to exist as an independent department it had a staff of 12,000 direct employees, 10,000 indirect employees, 1,000 buildings (more than any other government department) and a yearly budget of £2.4 billion.
Read more about this topic: Lord Chancellor's Department
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