Following the success of Day 1 of the Spring Conference, we are now looking forward to bringing you Day 2 on Friday, 14th June.
We will begin with a session from Mark Heath, Consultant with VWV giving some highly practical guidance on preparing for the UK Parliamentary General Election on 4th July. This session will be followed by an exploration of a joint working case study on the Sunderland Eye Infirmary with Alan Ross, Partner at Weightmans and Jeanette Armin from Sunderland City Council.
Session 3 will explore recent employment tribunal decisions on the conflict between gender critical beliefs and trans rights with Julie Bann, Partner at Sharpe Pritchard, before we look at lessons learned from the new wave of devolution deals with Dmitrije Sirovica, Partner at Browne Jacobson. For session 5 we will welcome Andrew Latham, Partner at Capsticks who will be looking at the implementation and issues surrounding putting AI into practice.
Session 6 will look at some tricky issues relating to standards of conduct with Jonathan Goolden, Partner at Wilkin Chapman, including when the Code applies, freedom of expression and who can know what about a complaint. Our final session of the day will explore housing condition claims and the risk to health with Rachael Fawcett and Charlotte Ash from Weightmans.
All sessions will be recorded, and delegates will have access to the recordings and slides after the Conference.
Consultant, VWV and Returning Officer, Southampton City Council
Mark Heath is a solicitor and consultant at VWV where he specialises in providing advice to clients in the public sector. He is also the Returning Officer at Southampton.
Mark has over 30 years' service within the public sector. Until December 2016 he held the positions of Solicitor to the Council (and Monitoring Officer) for 20 years and subsequently Director of Resources / Director of Place and finally Chief Operating Officer at Southampton City Council.
He became Southampton's Electoral Registration and Returning Officer in 1994, roles he still holds. He has served as Regional Returning Officer for the South-East Region of the UK in various elections and referendums as well as Police Area Returning Officer (PARO) for the Hampshire Force Area. He also sits on various bodies convened by Government and the Electoral Commission that look at electoral law, policy and practice as well as writing and lecturing on the topic.
Partner, Weightmans
Alan Ross is a Partner in the Construction and Engineering team of national UK top 40 law firm Weightmans LLP.
Alan has over 19 years’ experience and is widely regarded as a non-contentious construction specialist, having advised on numerous key infrastructure, regeneration and mixed-use projects throughout the UK, Republic of Ireland and the Channel Islands for both public and private sector clients.
His recent Local Authority experience includes advising:
Sunderland City Council in respect of:
The development subsidiary company of a County Council regarding the drafting and negotiation of the FIDIC Yellow Book engineering contract in respect of a £30m marine dock extension at a Port.
A County Council and their development company regarding the JCT contracts, professional team appointments, novations, collateral warranties, bonds and guarantees for:
A Borough Council and Combined Authority on the circa £100m redevelopment of its train station. Advised in relation to the APA with Network Rail and the NEC3 construction documents in respect of the contractor appointed off the Scape framework.
Development Manager, Sunderland City Council
Jeanette Armin is the Development Manager for the City Development Team at Sunderland City Council, currently delivering a diverse programme of commercial developments that will see Sunderland transformed by 2035.
Jeanette’s background is in Civil Engineering, with more than 30 years’ experience working in public, commercial and private sectors. She has delivered an extensive portfolio of brownfield construction, engineering, transport and regeneration projects from inception to handover and has won several Industry awards in recognition for place making and commercial building projects.
Partner, Sharpe Pritchard
Julie was called to the Bar in 1999 and cross qualified as a solicitor in 2005. She has specialised in employment law since 2001.
Julie started her employment practice advising charities and other third sector organisations. She joined Sharpe Pritchard in April 2020.
Julie now provides advice to employers across a wide range of sectors but particularly specialises in advising clients from the public sector and the third sector. She has substantial experience of advising on both contentious and non-contentious matters.
She has particular experience in advising on TUPE issues, restricting and redundancies and complex employment litigation.
Partner, Browne Jacobson
Dmitrije works in the area of public administrative law advising and assisting clients on all matters relating to the lawful exercise of their functions, as well as defending claims against public authorities in judicial review. He has a broad client base, which includes local authorities, environmental bodies, health bodies, as well as central government departments and other bodies exercising functions of a public nature.
Dmitrije also has expertise in information law, assisting clients on all matters relating to the application of the data protection legislation, Freedom of Information Act 2000, Environmental Information Regulations 2004, and the duty of confidentiality.
Partner, Capsticks
Andrew is a Partner in the Public Law team, having originally trained at Capsticks. He now leads on much of the firm’s information law work across litigation, advisory and transactional matters for healthcare, housing, emergency service, and regulatory clients.
Andrew has a wide range of experience in information law work, including successfully representing clients in the High Court and County Court in confidentiality related issues; in the Tribunals on Freedom of Information Act matters; and before the Information Commissioner on data protection issues including helping clients manage proposed enforcement action and information rights complaints. He has drafted a wide range of information sharing agreements, policies and other governance documentation. He frequently works on topical issues such as artificial intelligence and the use of novel technology, integration and collaboration between organisations, and international data sharing.
In addition to his specialism on information governance matters, Andrew is an expert on public law in the healthcare context, and in particular on the powers and duties of NHS bodies and ensuring lawful decision making. He also provides advice on a wide range of broader advisory and risk issues, including mental health and mental capacity law, drugs and pharmaceuticals, and complaints management. He also works with clients on Court of Protection matters, responses to threatened judicial reviews, and supports clients out-of-hours as part of Capsticks' emergency advice service.
Partner, Wilkin Chapman
Jonathan is a highly experienced regulatory and public sector lawyer and former senior manager. He trained as a solicitor in Manchester, London and Brussels before joining Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in 1991. In 1993 he moved to Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council initially undertaking planning and corporate work, before managing a litigation and social services legal team. He was seconded to the Council's Internal Inquiry team investigating serious corruption and misconduct amongst senior staff and councillors.
In 1998, Jonathan became Secretary and Solicitor to Derbyshire Dales District Council and its monitoring officer. In 2000, he moved to Lincolnshire, becoming a Deputy Clerk and Monitoring Officer, then Clerk to Lincolnshire Police Authority. He left the Police Authority in 2004 to set up his own firm which he merged with Wilkin Chapman LLP in 2010 and he is currently based at the firm's main office in Grimsby.
He was a member of the core drafting team for INLOGOV working on the modular constitutions project for English local government and lectures widely on governance and ethical standards issues.
Together with his team of experienced former police and local government officers, he has investigated and led a large number of reviews of complex and politically high profile cases of alleged misconduct in the public sector. His investigation of Boris Johnson’s conduct as Mayor of London and Chairman of the then Metropolitan Police Authority in relation to the arrest of Damien Green MP was cited as an example of best practice of a high pressured investigation by Hull Business School in research for the Standards Board for England.
More recently, he has reviewed the handling of significant whistle blowing allegations in a mental health NHS trust, child safeguarding and taxi licensing issues at a district council and assisted a London Borough hold its first full council meeting after a major and very high profile disaster.
Jonathan advises a range of commercial and public sector bodies on information governance, including data protection and information security and is a member of the Humber Business Resilience Forum.
Partner, Weightmans
Rachael is a Partner within the Weightmans Casualty Department. Rachael deals with an extensive array of employers' and public liability claims made against public service organisations including local authorities, registered providers of social housing and educational providers. Rachael has a particular interest in claims against landlords and housing providers and advises on a wide variety of issues ranging from trips and slips, nuisance, defective premises, data protection and housing condition claims with a personal injury and health element. Rachael works closely with Weightmans' Property Litigation Team providing specialist input and advice in respect of personal injury elements of housing condition claims.
Associate, Weightmans
Charlotte is an Associate within the Weightmans Property Litigation Department. Charlotte has extensive experience dealing with disrepair claims, acting for registered providers and housing associations, including cases involving Environmental Protection Act Issues. Charlotte also has experience dealing with a variety of property management issues including possession proceedings, debt recovery, enforcement of disputed contractual terms in respect of historic rent recovery and access injunctions. Charlotte has extensive experience running a variety of matters from issue of proceedings through to trial on behalf of both Claimants and Defendants.
Related training
09:10 - 16:30
Online
