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Listed below are the national news items and national events.
The finalists have been announced for the LLG Awards 2020. Congratulations to everyone who will now go forward to be determined as the winner in each category to be announced live at the Awards on 2nd April 2020 in Birmingham. The best of luck!
The Trust, which was set up to promote and develop the role of solicitors, and trainee solicitors employed in local government in legal, managerial and administrative capacities, provides sponsorship and grants towards the fees of solicitors/trainees undertaking training courses to enhance their skills and broaden their experiences relevant to an applicant's local government work. You can also read the Trusts latest report here.
The Legal Services Board (LSB) have put out a call for evidence in regard to defining competence and competence assurance, consumer expectations of competence and competence in the legal services sector as part of their ongoing competence project. The LSB vies the call for evidence as "an important opportunity to ensure we capture all of the latest and most relevant information to understand if there are any gaps in our knowledge, or to identify areas where a policy response may be needed to address risks to consumers and the public interest". Evidence closes on 15th May 2020 and LLG are keen to respond.
Climate change issues affect every aspect of societies and the economy. One feature of this is the investments that organisations make, directly themselves or indirectly through pension funds, and whether these investments are in line with a positive environmental agenda. It is an issue that hit the headlines recently - with a local authority dimension - when the Brunel Pension Partnership (BPP), which manages some £30bn for local government pension schemes and is a Barclays shareholder, lent its support to a resolution calling on the bank to stop offering loans to fossil fuel companies or those that fall foul of climate targets. This was described as the “first ever shareholder climate resolution aimed at a UK bank”. With so many billions being invested on behalf of local authority pension schemes, including of course by various funds within the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) itself, as climate change awareness and concern rises it is clearly becoming a more relevant issue that authorities know where funds are being placed. In some cases, they may want to take steps to make changes.
The Environment Bill has returned to Parliament following last year’s general election. The previous version of the Bill was introduced into Parliament in October 2019 and passed its first two readings in the House of Commons before Parliament was dissolved ahead of the General Election on 12 December 2019. The new Bill’s provisions are largely identical to those in the previous version of the Bill. Those provisions are summarised in our 15 October 2019 article Heading for the green Brexit and include measures to introduce a new environment governance framework replacing that formerly provided by the EU (including the establishment of the new Office for Environmental Protection) and measures covering waste and resource efficiency, air quality, water, and nature and biodiversity.
Join LLG and Weightmans on Thursday 27th February 2020 at their Manchester office at No 1 Spinningfields, Hardman Square, Manchester, M3 3EB. With topics including member intimidation, standards and CSPL recommendations the morning will provide an opportunity to share learning and put questions to the group. Lunch is included to provide an opportunity to network.
Monday 24th February 2020 at 10.00am at Chelmsford City Council, Civic Centre, Duke St, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 1JE Topics include the wider family of in-house lawyers, support and opportunities, and a speaker from PLP team to talk about their experience of being a trainee locally. Please click to register your attendance.
The public sector is one of the largest buyers of goods and services in the economy – and its order books are therefore a major factor in tackling the climate emergency. In local government, the procurement bill for most authorities amounts to hundreds of millions of pounds annually. According to the Local Government Association (‘LGA’), authorities spend more than three-quarters of a billion pounds on energy alone. Their collective spending power, therefore, has the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions, increase sustainability in communities and places and maximise other co benefits, whether environmental, social or economic, including the development of more innovative and energy-efficient products.