Local Government Lawyer

The Government has accepted all 12 of the recommendations in Baroness Louise Casey’s national audit on group-based child sexual exploitation, including her calls for a national inquiry, unique reference numbers for children and an immediate end to ‘out of area taxis’. In an address to Parliament on Tuesday (17 June), Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the report’s…

The demands on temporary housing have reached crisis point, with homeless families being forced into substandard and sometimes dangerous accommodation, whilst the costs involved are pushing many local authorities into financial distress. To investigate the legal and other barriers to tackling this issue, Local Government Lawyer and Devonshires are conducting a short survey into some of the…

A Welsh Senedd member found to have breached the Code of Conduct after confidential information was shared with the press has called for reform of the Code, arguing it unfairly prevents members from defending themselves against “unfounded allegations”. Speaking in the Welsh Senedd on Wednesday (30 April), Siân Gwenllian MS said the current Code restrains…

The demands on temporary housing have reached crisis point, with homeless families being forced into substandard and sometimes dangerous accommodation, whilst the costs involved are pushing many local authorities into financial distress. To investigate the legal and other barriers to tackling this issue, Local Government Lawyer and Devonshires are conducting a short survey into some of the…

The chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission has said the regulator will be “working at pace” to incorporate into its revised Code of Practice the implications of this week’s Supreme Court landmark ruling on gender recognition certificates and the definition of ‘sex’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in the Equality Act 2010. A revised Code…

The Supreme Court has ruled that a person with a full gender recognition certificate which recognises their gender as female, is not a “woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010), and that the meaning of the word woman in the 2010 Act is “biological”. In For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish…

Community and town councils in Wales are increasingly failing to submit annual returns in accordance with proper practices, keeping inadequate accounting records, and failing to publish information they are legally required to, Audit Wales has warned. The findings were detailed in the watchdog’s latest report, Financial Management and Governance – Lessons from Audit for Community and…