All Government & politics articles – Page 235
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NewsKent council firm boosts profits
Profits at Kent Legal Services rose 20% to £2.4m for 2012/13, the local authority-owned venture reported today. Turnover rose £1m to £12m. The performance capped the previous year’s growth of 18% to £2m, on a turnover up by 10%. Kent County Council was one of the first legal service teams ...
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News
Profession warned to learn from coalition legacy debacle
Probate specialists have warned of the need to learn lessons from the debacle of a £520,000 bequest to ‘the government of the day’.
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NewsGovernment to propose new custodial powers for magistrates
New measures to ensure that more offences involving custodial sentences are handled entirely in magistrates’ courts feature in plans to overhaul the justice system.
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Law Report
Statutory powers
Defendant secretary of state appointing Trust Special Administrator to NHS Trust – TSA making recommendations concerning hospital in neighbouring Trust area
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Law Report
HS2: challenge
Claimants challenging decisions and procedures – Judge dismissing majority of grounds of challenge
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News
TSol set for major recruitment push
Whitehall’s central legal services provider the Treasury Solicitors Department (TSol) is to recruit 40 lawyers after spending nearly £4.6m on temporary staff through outsourcer Capita, the Gazette can reveal. The recruitment campaign is for advisory, commercial, employment and litigation lawyers at civil service grade 7, with salaries between £47,086 and ...
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Opinion
Open justice? Open court listings would be a start
A century ago, in Scott v Scott (1913), the House of Lords affirmed the common law rule that courts must administer justice in public. Just last week, Lord Justice Kay cited the ruling when rejecting a request by a Saudi prince for litigation to be heard in private. He ruled: ...
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News
I have seen the future and it didn't work
In autumn 2005, on a visit to the Home Office’s shiny new headquarters near Millbank, I enjoyed a demonstration of an all-singing, all-dancing joined-up criminal justice IT system. The ‘walk through’ was to show off a £2bn programme to join up police forces, prosecutors, the courts and prison and probation ...
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News
A car crash of a hearing
When insurers, lawyers and claims management companies are quizzed about who is to blame for the apparent epidemic in whiplash accident claims, it is obvious who will emerge as the culprit.
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News
‘Christmas tree’ bills
According to the official summary (slightly paraphrased) the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act exists to make provision about the Green Investment Bank; employment law; to establish the Competition and Markets Authority and to abolish the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading; to amend the Competition Act 1998 and ...
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News
Taxpayer to foot bill for interpreter pay rise
A 22% hike in payments to courtroom interpreters is set to knock a large hole in savings forecast by the government under its ill-starred initiative to contract out the service.
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News
High Court throws out JR on ‘easyCouncil’
A London council is to proceed with the outsourcing of regulatory services such as building control and land charges after fighting off a High Court challenge. The court today dismissed an application for a judicial review against the London borough of Barnet’s programme to outsource a wide range of services ...
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News
Press royal charter looks like a winner for lawyers
When one door closes, another opens. So, if your legal aid or PI business looks a little shaky at the moment, have you considered opportunities in media law? The Recognition Panel whose royal charter was approved today in the latest tortuous step of the Leveson process opens up plenty of ...
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News
Power of attorney applications lead MoJ’s digital dash
Applications for lasting power of attorney will be available on the web from next April as one of a batch of digital services, the Ministry of Justice revealed today. The service is one of four picked by the department to meet central government’s call for ‘digital by default’ public services ...
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News
ALS interpreters contract facing renewed scrutiny
The deal between the Ministry of Justice and the private company contracted to provide court interpreters is to face scrutiny from parliamentary watchdogs, as cases continue to be disrupted by poor performance and non-attendance of interpreters.
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News
MoJ interpreting hub a ‘false economy’
Concern is mounting that the Ministry of Justice's central contract for interpreting work could prove a false economy, incurring knock-on costs for criminal justice agencies.
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News
MoJ in line of fire over interpreters contract
The Ministry of Justice could face a legal challenge to its new cost-cutting arrangements for the provision of interpretation and translation services across the justice sector.
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News
Tarzan and the briefs
In his heyday, Michael ‘Tarzan’ Heseltine MP was renowned for finding the G-spot of the Conservative Party. This week, Lord Heseltine of Thenford seems to have worked the trick across the political spectrum. Whatever the likelihood of it being implemented, his ‘No Stone Unturned in Pursuit of Growth’ report brought ...
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News
Bring out your dead
If 200 people in England and Wales dropped dead one week from a mysterious unknown cause, you’d think our supposedly nanny state would learn about it right away.