In this edition we provide you with the latest in legal updates, news and insight from the higher education sector.
Welcome to be connected our quarterly update for Higher Education Institutions.
We aim to provide content that offers you real value and relevant, useful information from our national team of legal and HR experts.
be connected is your space. Please help us to help you by providing your feedback and letting us know what you would like to see featured in a future edition.
In this edition we provide you with the latest in legal updates, news and insight from the higher education sector.
It has been a turbulent couple of years for those involved in subsidy control. The repeal of the State Aid rules and their replacement means that practitioners and public bodies are having to acclimatise to a new, more flexible but less certain approach.
In the first part of this article, we discussed the application of the Subsidy Control principles, and the exemptions, prohibitions and restrictions contained within the Subsidy Control Bill.
In part two, we look at how streamlined subsidy schemes will be used to grant certain subsidies more quickly, and at the enforcement and transparency provisions of the Bill.
Financial crime is an increasing threat to all organisations. The modes of facilitating fraud have become easier. Being a victim of fraud as an organisation risks significant financial consequence, but also serious reputational harm and loss of stakeholder confidence.
Not a day goes by without a media article referring to the ongoing global energy crisis. There are a number of factors which have contributed to the crisis including the huge increase in wholesale natural gas prices, which have risen some 250% since the start of 2021. Since the start of last year, over 30 energy firms have gone bust in the UK alone.
Universities have always had an interest in commercialising their intellectual property (IP) and in recent years we have seen a rise in ambition from universities, students and academics. So what do you need to think about if you have the drive to make more of your IP assets?
Cases involving the handling allegations of harassment and sexual misconduct by universities continue to hit the news. They are clearly difficult issues for universities given the competing duties owed to both the reporting individual and the alleged perpetrator and the inevitable sensitivities around the nature of these matters.
The data protection legislation (namely, the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018) contain various provisions that deal with the processing of personal data for research purposes. In short, these provisions allow personal data to be processed for the following three purposes…
We’re all familiar with spin-outs. Licensing and patent portfolios are traditional aspects of university commercialisation strategies. However, spin-ins are growing in popularity and are fast becoming an important part of a university’s commercialisation arsenal; but what exactly are they?
Legal and HR services for education LinkedIn page
Stay up to date with news and insights from our specialist lawyers and HR consultants.
There’s been little evidence of interventions or financial management reviews this year and it appears the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has re-focussed on financial delivery. It’s also telling that there were no discernible changes to the reporting of financial irregularities in the Academies Trust Handbook 2022.
The Children’s Commissioner, Rachel De Souza, has recently published a report “Beyond the labels: a SEND system which works for every child, every time”, which she intends to sit alongside the DfE’s SEND Review (2019) and SEND Green Paper (2022) and which she hopes will put children’s voices at the heart of the government’s review of SEND system.
There’s greater opportunity than ever for parents, carers and guardians to voice any concerns they have relating to their child’s education and for their concerns to be heard and to be taken seriously. While most staff in schools and academies are conscious of their legal duties relating to complaints management, many are struggling to cope with such a significant increase in the volume of complaints they must manage.
We’re pleased to collaborate with Lloyds Bank, who recently asked us and audit and risk specialists Crowe UK to offer guidance that academy trusts would find helpful when considering setting up a trading subsidiary.
The DfE has published new guidance and opened the application process for window two of the Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF) for 2022/2023, with a fund of £86m in trust capacity funding focused particularly on education investment areas.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was established in March 2015. We now have its report. As you would expect with such a broad scope, the report is long and makes a number of far-reaching recommendations. In this article, Dai Durbridge highlights seven of the 20 recommendations, sets out how they could impact on schools and suggests what steps to take now.
Browne Jacobson’s education team has been named as winner of the ‘Legal Advisors to Education Institutions’ category at the Education Investor Awards 2022 for a record sixth time.
Since the new Suspensions and Exclusions Statutory Guidance was published, we have received a lot of questions about the use of managed moves. For the first time, the Statutory Guidance does explain what a managed move is, but in relatively broad terms and does not cover the mechanics of how a managed move should operate.
Over 3000 young people from across the UK and Ireland took part in a virtual legal careers insight event, aimed at making the legal profession more diverse.
Holly Quirk, an associate barrister in Browne Jacobson’s Manchester office, was awarded the Legal Professional of the Year Award at this year’s Manchester Young Talent Awards.
The risk of assault against staff is, sadly, something that all schools need to consider carefully. Here one legal expert explains what they can do to protect staff and ensure they fulfil their duty of care.
Browne Jacobson’s education team has again been confirmed as a national powerhouse after securing five Tier 1 rankings relating to Education in the latest edition of Legal 500 and maintaining a Band 1 UK-wide ranking for Education in Chambers & Partners UK 2023.
Created at the end of the Brexit transition period, Retained EU Law is a category of domestic law that consists of EU-derived legislation retained in our domestic legal framework by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. This was never intended to be a permanent arrangement as parliament promised to deal with retained EU law through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (the “Bill”).
In this article we set out the criteria, expectations and support schools should consider if notified they fall within this new category.
The words “Grammar schools” are once again being whispered in government and the question of whether the creation of new grammar schools will finally be implemented as a central focus to DFE policy has re-surfaced.
