Blog
I’m buying a listed property - How do I check a recent kitchen extension was done with the right approvals?
Vanessa Rhodes
23 November 2021
Are builders ‘gaming the system’ to flout fire safety legislation?
Last week Assistant Commissioner Fire Safety, Paul Jennings of the London Fire Brigade stated that developers are ‘gaming the system’, looking to reach only the minimum standards required for building safety and ‘bending the rules’. AC Jennings explained that we are not seeing the cultural change within the built environment that we would expect, following the tragic events of the Grenfell Tower fire and the subsequent Hackitt review.
17 November 2021
The FRC’s What Makes a Good Audit? report is timely as the audit regulatory landscape readies itself for change
The FRC has published a new paper aimed at audit firms and audit stakeholders containing best practice principles concerning how a good audit should be conducted and the elements indicative of a high performing audit practice.
11 November 2021
Health and Safety - personal liability for directors operating in the built environment
The built environment presents health and safety risks like no other sector. Whether it be the risk of falls from height, hazardous substances, trapped by items collapsing or overturning, fire or moving vehicles there are a wide range of hazards that need to be managed from the outset. Directors can be held personally liable when health and safety duties are breached. In this blog we explore the scope of personal liability for directors in the built environment.
27 October 2021
How should panels deal with past allegations made by a complainant?
Conviction cases are ordinarily relatively straightforward for regulators. If a registrant is convicted of a criminal offence, the regulator will generally treat the fact of the conviction as proof the offence was committed – and take action to protect the public accordingly. See Achina v General Pharmaceutical Council [2021] EWHC 415 (Admin) for an example of the difficulties registrants face when they attempt to ‘go behind’ the facts of a conviction.
20 October 2021
Returning to the office? MeToo
As the legal profession returns to the office after many months ensconced in home offices, many will be looking forward to the increase in social interaction and in-person activities which will inevitably follow. Alongside this, legal services regulators appear to be gearing up for a commensurate rise in bullying and harassment complaints. With developments apace in this area among the UK regulators and further afield, what are we likely to see next from the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA)?
