News in Brief

CHANGES AT THE TOP

The Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) has finally found a replacement for Richard Miller who left to join the Law Society last August. Carol Storer, a solicitor and legal services manager at Shelter, is taking over the role in the spring. Meanwhile, Jon Robins is joining the Legal Action Group later this month as communications and campaigns director. Robins currently edits the magazine Independent Lawyer and works as a freelance journalist.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has launched an international, externally assured corporate social responsibility (CSR) report—a first for a major international law firm. The report, Corporate Social Responsibility: Making a Difference around the World, covers Freshfields’ 26 offices worldwide and follows the release of the firm’s Londonfocused CSR report in 2006.

KINDER SURPRISE

Kinder eggs—“it’s chocolate and a toy and a surprise”, according to the adverts—could soon be outlawed if European Commission plans to improve toy safety in Europe are adopted. The Commission is proposing a range of measures aimed at enhancing the safety of toys by replacing and modernising the 20-year-old Toys Directive 88/378/EEC. One of the revisions would see the prohibition of toys which can only be accessed through eating food—sounding the death knell for the popular eggs.

ILEX CASEWORKERS

Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) designated caseworkers (DCWs) could be admitted into the Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) for the first time later this year following an agreement in principle between the CPS and ILEX. Under the proposals, caseworkers who have undertaken the DCW training programme and have been designated by the director of public prosecutions to present hearings in magistrates’ courts would become CPS members of the institute.

PCT PAYS

The parents of a severely disabled adult have won the right to have payments for her care from their Primary Care Trust (PCT) made directly to them. As an NHS Continuing Healthcare patient, the responsibility for funding care for Julie Patnaik falls on the NHS, rather than the local social services department. After Sunderland Teaching PCT refused to pay the Patnaiks directly for their daughter’s care, they took the matter to judicial review. At a preliminary hearing the court dismissed the PCT’s claim that to make payments would open the floodgates to other NHS patients. Permission for the case to proceed to a full hearing was given but the PCT agreed to make payments to the Patnaiks, and to pay legal costs.

CHILD DEATHS

A review of child deaths has found that some recommendations made in Lord Lamming’s report into the death of Victoria Climbié have not been enacted. The study of the 161 most serious cases of child death or abuse found that 55% of children involved were known to children’s social care at the time of the incident. The report also showed that children’s social care had failed to take into account the past history of families where children suffered long-term abuse and had adopted a “start again syndrome” where the focus is on the present rather than tackling patterns of abuse. The study also found that more than half of the children involved in serious abuse had been living with domestic violence, parents with substance abuse problems or mental illness.

SECRET INQUESTS

The government intends to remove juries from some inquests at the request of the home secretary. The measures, contained in Pt 6 of the Counter-Terrorism Bill, also allow for inquests into terrorist-related deaths, which may involve the use of sensitive and specialist information, to go ahead without a public presence. The Ministry of Justice says the measures would be used sparingly and only in exceptional circumstances.