Dementia Friends
Fifteen members of our staff have completed a training course run by The Alzheimer’s Society to become recognised Dementia Friends.
The course looks at understanding issues surrounding dementia and what’s it’s like living with dementia or caring for someone with a dementia diagnosis.
The Alzheimer’s Society are on target to recruit 4 million Dementia Friends by 2020 and Burton & Dyson are proud to be part of the scheme.
To build on the Dementia Friends training, Sarah Grayson, Solicitor in our Wills and Probate department, is also a member of the West Lindsey Dementia Action Alliance, which aims to raise awareness of dementia related issues in the local community and is working towards making West Lindsey a recognised Dementia Friendly Community.
‘Common law marriage’ and cohabitation paper published
The Library of Commons has published a briefing paper relating to ‘common law marriage’ and cohabitation across England and Wales.
The paper includes statistics for the number of cohabitants in Britain and general information on how the law applies to cohabitants, as well as future reformation proposals from the Law Commission.
Although cohabitants can have legal protection in many respects, it gives no actual legal status to a couple – unlike marriage or civil partnership – and, presently, a cohabiting couple has little legal protection should they decide to separate.
In July 2007, following consultation, the Law Commission published a report titled: Cohabitation: the financial consequences of relationship breakdown, which considered the financial consequences of the ending of cohabiting relationships. The Law Commission recommended the introduction of a new statutory scheme of financial relief on separation, based on the contributions made to the relationship by the parties. The scheme would be available to eligible cohabiting couples and couples that had had a child together or who had lived together for a minimum period would be eligible. In March 2008, the Labour Government announced that it would be taking no action to implement the Law Commission’s recommendations until research on the cost and effectiveness of a similar scheme recently implemented in Scotland could be studied.
On 6 September 2011, Jonathan Djanogly, then a junior Justice Minister, announced that having carefully considered the Law Commission’s recommendations, together with the outcomes of research on the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006, the then Government did not intend to reform the law relating to cohabitation in that Parliamentary term. In a separate report, published in 2011, the Law Commission recommended that some unmarried partners should have the right to inherit on each other’s death under the intestacy rules, without having to go to court. The Coalition Government did not implement this recommendation.
The full Commons Library briefing paper, ‘common law marriage’ and cohabitation is available to view online at the link below.
Link: ‘Common law marriage’ and cohabitation paper
‘The state is selling justice’
Increasing court fees to pay for the legal system “smacks of the state selling justice”. That’s according to Chantal-Aimée Doerries, Chair of the Bar Council, who said the Government’s strategy of cutting state spending on the courts and tribunals system and shifting the cost to those who use the courts represented a “growing trend that perhaps views justice as a commodity”.
A range of court and tribunal fees – including for employment and immigration cases – were increased by the Coalition Government and ministers recently completed a consultation on further fee hikes, including increases in civil court fees and those for divorce.
Giving evidence to the Justice Select Committee, Ms Doerries said that the Bar Council accepted that some costs should be collected from individuals and companies, but warned against a “fundamental” shift from state-funded courts to courts funded by fees.
“There is an obligation on the state to provide an accessible and functioning justice system and there seems to be at the moment a growing trend that perhaps views justice as a commodity, something which somebody chooses to use rather than actually a fundamental right within a functioning democracy,” she said. “Having just had the year of the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta it smacks really of the state selling justice,” she concluded.
Link: The Bar Council
Gender pay gap in the spotlight
The Government has published draft gender pay gap reporting regulations for consultation.
These regulations, that are due to come into force on 1 October 2016, will apply to private and voluntary sector companies with at least 250 “relevant employees”; those ordinarily working in Great Britain and whose contracts are governed by UK legislation. Mandatory reporting will also be extended to the public sector and there will be further consultation on how this will work in practice.
Under the regulations, employers must take their first snapshot of data on 30 April 2017 and publish their figures by April 2018. Data will need to be reported annually after that. Employers must publish their mean and median gender pay gaps, as well as the number of men and women within each quartile of pay distribution. Additionally, employers have to publish information relating to the gender bonus gap.
The report needs to be published on the employer’s website every year and employers must also upload it to a Government-sponsored website. A written statement confirming the accuracy of the information will also be required.
Guidance to assist employers with implementing the regulations will be published later this year.
Link: Mandatory Gender Pay Gap Reporting
