News & Events

Listed below are the national news items and national events.

High Court Hears Virtual Meeting Provision JR
Publish date: 21/04/2021
Proceedings for a court declaration that virtual meetings can proceed past 6th May 2021 was heard today in the High Court before the President of the Queens Bench Division, Dame Victoria Sharp and the Hon Mr Martin Chamberlain QC.
The LLG Grapevine - Week 41 Available Now
Publish date: 19/04/2021
Talking Law in Local Government
LLG Webinar: Unlocking Unused Publicly Owned Land for Regeneration
Publish date: 15/04/2021
Shoosmiths Planning Partner Tim Willis and Legal Director Samantha Grange examine the Government’s proposals for a public right to regenerate underused or vacant public sector land.
Branch Meetings quick survey
Publish date: 15/04/2021
1 minute snap shot survey on Virtual Branch meetings
The LLG Grapevine - Week 40 Available Now
Publish date: 12/04/2021
Talking Law in Local Government
Thomson Reuters Launch Innovative Legal Hub
Publish date: 01/04/2021
One of the biggest challenges for in-house legal teams is an increasing volume of work. In addition to managing a complex and varied workload, legal departments must ensure that the value of their work is visible to their client departments and understood by stakeholders
Senedd Update - No 147 - 31st March 2021
Publish date: 31/03/2021
View the latest Senedd Update No 147
The LLG Grapevine - Week 39 Available Now
Publish date: 29/03/2021
Talking Law in Local Government
The letter to Council Leaders from Luke Hall MP received yesterday (25th March 2021) does not change the need for our court hearing, in fact if anything, it makes the need for it more pressing.
Publish date: 26/03/2021
Councils are already actively considering the options the minister has suggested, including looking at alternative larger meeting venues at significant extra cost. The proposal to delegate significant decisions to officers is likely to be viewed as undermining democratic accountability due to the fact that such decisions are not subject to direct member involvement. Given the circumstances authorities find themselves in due to the imminent loss of virtual meeting provision, they now face unpalatable decisions, which include restricting member attendance and a reduction in members roles in decision making, whilst attempting to keep the machinery of local government moving. LLG & ADSO remain fully committed to presenting our case at the High Court Hearing timetabled to be heard before the end of April 2021.
Memorandum Regarding Exemption from Authorisation of Local Authority Legal Teams
Publish date: 26/03/2021
A memorandum has been jointly prepared by Lawyers in Local Government with input from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on exemption for authorisation under Section 15 Legal Services Act 2007. Thanks to the hard work of our President, Quentin Baker and Abdus Choudhury, Deputy Director, Legal and Governance at One source, together with the significant contribution of Fiona Anthony from nplaw, who worked hard to ensure guidance as to the circumstances in which this approach to regulation will be appropriate, we now have some clarity on this historical issue.

Blog

30 April 2021

Publish date: 30/04/2021

Whoever said that the law was dull and who could have imagined that a meeting of a dysfunctional parish council could attract a thousand viewers via you tube. Perhaps this surrealist vision is a reflection of the dreamlike year of lockdown we've all just lived through. A time when councils across the land, overnight, converted the way they conducted their most significant decision making from the age old 'face to face' meeting to the new world or Zoom, MS Teams and 'legacy hands'.

The transformation happened overnight and for many it all got off to a shaky start with congested bandwidth, feedback and councillors demonstrating their need for basic ICT skills training. Worse than this were the occasions where councillors forgot that they were on video….perhaps the less said the better. However, we quickly overcame these initial hurdles and found ways to avoid the feedback. We learnt by our mistakes and built in regular breaks to the meetings and developed protocols to bring order to the proceedings.

Fast forward to the present and there must have been literally tens probably hundreds of thousands of fully remote meetings conducted during the last 12 months. Perhaps the most notable fact is that Handsworth Parish Council was the only one to go viral and this is probably due to the fact that the vast majority of the remote meetings were successfully conducted and achieved satisfactory outcomes.

So it was disappointing to read the recent judgement of the President of the QBD and Mr Justice Chamberlain which concluded that the court should not in this case utilise the updating approach to statutory interpretation in light of contextual changes, but instead to stand back and leave the issue for parliament to decide. The argument around the role of the courts and that of the parliament has a familiar ring to it, reminiscent of the Brexit litigation.

The disappointment doesn't arise from any lack of technical prowess in the construction of the judgement which, as you'd expect from judges of this calibre is succinct and logical in its execution. However, it's the implicit underlying presumption that Local Authorities aren't able or can't be trusted to safely conduct these meetings without Parliament having imposed an additional layer of prescriptive rules which undermines this judgement. This is at odds with the reality that we've all experienced at the chalk face.

So, for me the last few weeks have proved to be a bit of a legal rollercoaster. On the one hand, a fascinating opportunity to experience the High Court in action in seeking to make sense of arguments which are more nuanced than many straightforward legal actions with two parties slogging it out as opposed to this case in which all parties had a shared view which, as it transpired, was at odds with the Judges. On the other, the irony of the hearing itself getting off to a shaky start due to the court having some technical issues which caused feedback when counsel delivered their submission. It was surely a portent.

Although the court chose not to exercise its discretion in our favour the process of taking the application to court has strengthened the resolve to do whatever is necessary to enable the option for remote attendance to become a permanent option in the future and we will work with MHCLG to enable it to happen quickly and effectively.

Best wishes

Quentin Baker

LLG President