The Government has issued its initial response to the Francis Report of the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. It sets out a five point plan intended to herald an end to failure and a call for excellence. This article gives a summary of what the plan will cover.
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.
This Update contains brief details of Government and EU publications, legislation, cases and other developments in England and Wales relevant to those interested in municipal waste management, which have been published in February 2013.
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.
ECO represents a significant opportunity for local authorities and registered providers on the one hand and for energy companies and third party contractors and service companies on the other. The big six energy companies are seeking to work directly with those public authorities who have housing stock to see what ECO can be applied to that stock.
There are, however, a number of factors for local authorities and registered providers to consider carefully before taking the first offer made by an obligated energy supplier.
At the end of January, HM Treasury and IUK jointly published the "Infrastructure Procurement Routemap - a guide to improving delivery capabilities".
Aimed "primarily at the sponsor and client organisations that develop major projects and programmes, long term capital investment plans and publicly procured mega-projects", it is already being adopted by the likes of Crossrail, Network Rail and London Underground. The Routemap sets out a four-stage process to be followed before commencing the procurement of any major infrastructure project or programme.