This month the Ministry of Justice published “A Strategy for Reform” which contains details of how it plans to transform the rehabilitation of offenders who have spent less than 12 months in custody. A key component of this is likely to be the provision of appropriate housing. This alert takes a closer look at the MoJ’s plans and how registered providers can get involved.
On 1 April 2013 the assets and liabilities of PCTs and SHAs were transferred to the relevant receivers. However, there will be circumstances where the receiver identified in the Transfer Scheme may not be appropriate. This may be where PCTs were told that changes requested prior to 1 April would not be included and would need to be dealt with through rectification process. Alternatively it may be that the need to change the receiver has come to light since receipt of the final Transfer Scheme.
The Government has published its response to the consultation on reforming the judicial review process that was issued in December 2012. Despite admitting that most respondents opposed the proposals and criticised the consultation process, the Government is pressing ahead with reforms that it considers are necessary to target large numbers of “weak, frivolous and unmeritorious cases”.
This update contains brief details of recent key policy, legislation and case law developments relevant to those involved in procurement work, that have been published in the past three months.
Olwen Dutton, Local Government Partner has been named Partner of the year 2013 by the Birmingham Law Society.
At the award ceremony on Thursday 14 March, the judges indicated that they were impressed with the way that she had developed her career, moving from a prominent local government position, to become a leading private practice lawyer dealing with local authority issues.
Welcome to the February 2013 edition of Employment Eye our monthly newsletter with information on the latest employment law developments and how they should be implemented.
This month’s news round-up is brought to you by Alastair Currie and includes the latest news on: TUPE (whether it is ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’); whistleblowing; changes to unfair dismissal as a result of the recent BNP case on politically motivated dismissals; details of new guidance following the recent Eweida case on religious discrimination; and details of new developments on collective redundancy, family friendly rights and settlement agreements.
In a follow-up to our recent alert on the report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Inquiry, Julian Hoskins discusses the practical impact of the report on workforce issues, in a Q&A with Carlton Sadler - the Bevan Brittan Senior Associate who led the team advising one of the core participants in the Inquiry, the Care Quality Commission.
In
Lockwood v Department of Work and Pensions, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has confirmed that an enhanced redundancy payment for older workers did not amount to direct age discrimination, when objectively justified by a strong social policy objective. In this case, the strong social policy objective was the provision of a 'financial cushion' for older workers that reflected the extra difficulties they experienced after losing their jobs. George Pennington explains more.
Things rarely stand still in the housing market and 2013 is no different. Our quarterly publication of Housing Landscape aims to help professionals in housing to understand key issues and to keep up with all changes in the market. Our spring edition of Housing Landscape is now available and ready for download.