Imagine being able to contact your local authority through your digital television, on the Internet or even from a sophisticated communications kiosk in the street. Fact or fiction?

Well, not long from now, the people of Edinburgh will be able to do precisely this, thanks to a remarkable communications revolution that is taking place.

It is happening through a unique £150 million project called "Smart City" which has brought together City of Edinburgh Council and BT in Scotland's largest and most ambitious public/private sector initiative. Not surprisingly, a project of such magnitude has involved complex legal issues and delicate negotiation to bring it about. Throughout the embryonic stages of this ground-breaking project, a team from Shepherd and Wedderburn has been on hand to ensure its smooth transition from concept to reality.

Shepherd and Wedderburn was appointed in 1999 to advise the city on the legal and tactical requirements of the deal, and to take part in negotiations with BT's consulting and systems integrations business, Syntegra.

Shepherd and Wedderburn's team was led by Liz McRobb, while Paul Carlyle ran the negotiations with BT. Also included was Sheila Gunn on employment and TUPE issues, Louisa Knox and Richard Jones on pensions transfers and Karen Shaw on property issues.

Paul explained: "Local authorities all over the UK have been ordered by the Government to modernise the way they deliver their services, despite the fact many are still working with computer systems they inherited after reorganisation."

"Edinburgh's response was to produce the Smart City vision paper, not only in relation to IT, but also in how it can use technology to transform its dealings with its citizens."

Shepherd and Wedderburn's expertise in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure and partnership agreements was a potent combination according to Andrew Unsworth, the management consultant in charge of the Smart City project. He said: "We had bids from many legal firms after we advertised the project and the Shepherd and Wedderburn team impressed us from the start. Their team knew exactly what the project needed."

However, even getting the Smart City project to the starting gate was a significant challenge in itself.

Andrew added: "Most public/private partnerships are about buildings such as schools or hospitals or projects like the Skye bridge. In these cases, you can define what you want, draw plans and specify your requirements in huge amounts of detail. The Smart City project wasn't like that at all."

"For a start technology changes almost by the week and we were trying to define a partnership agreement that would work over ten years! It was important that we had effective and flexible procedures in the agreement that would allow us to deal with change from both partners' perspective. The lawyers were on top of those issues and gave us sound tactical advice on how to negotiate the deal." he said.

Paul explained that the approach was the tried and tested system the Firm has used in all such projects. "Liz McRobb and myself worked as an integrated part of the council's project team. We provided a focused point of contact for legal advice and managed the input of the various specialisms to ensure that the client received advice in the most efficient way."