LCF In The Media May 2022 by LCFPrint

IN THE MEDIA MAY 2022

FIRM WIDE

Bradford Manufacturing Weeks sponsorship

Local schools and manufacturers are being mobilised as the Bradford Manufacturing Weeks 2022 careers initiative announced its ambitions at a launch event. Apprentices, pupils, manufacturers and dignitaries including Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin, joined manufacturing host Christeyns UK at its Bradford site to announce this year’s itinerary which includes skills workshops, apprentice Qs and As and special educational needs (SEN) focussed events. Since 2018, the annual campaign, led by West & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, has created more than 15,000 manufacturing experiences for the district’s 14-18 year old students by delivering two weeks of employer-led manufacturing activities into Bradford’s schools and colleges.

Sponsored for 2022 by Bradford Council, E3 Recruitment, the University of Bradford, Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership, Naylor Wintersgill and LCF Law, Bradford Manufacturing Weeks will run from 3-14 October and include the popular Women in Manufacturing Q&A event, “Meet the Manufacturer” and “Meet the Apprentice” panel events, University of Bradford faculty tours and a host of factory site visits, work placement opportunities and activities tailored to pupils with special educational needs. Bradford Manufacturing Weeks is delivered in partnership with Bradford-based school and career specialists The Opportunity Centre and following last year’s success which saw manufacturing experiences delivered to 3,000 local young people, this year’s fortnight will continue to combine online and in person experiences. Addressing guests at the launch event, Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “By bringing together the region’s manufacturers with schools and colleges, our young people get to see first- hand the creativity and innovation that is happening on their doorstep.

FIRM WIDE

“As your Mayor, I am championing our fabulous regional businesses and ensuring that we have skills and training provision that helps people to get up and get on. Our manufacturing industry plays a central role in this. West Yorkshire is home to more manufacturing jobs than anywhere else in the North and I want us to do all that we can to support our world-class manufacturing sector.” She added: “I look forward to Bradford Manufacturing Weeks this October and working together to help shape the future of Bradford’s brilliant manufacturing industry.” Nick Garthwaite, founder of Bradford Manufacturing Weeks and Vice Chair of the West & North Yorkshire Chamber board, said: “Every year, we want to reach as many young people as possible and give them the experiences that will shape their views and career aspirations. “Today’s event and announcements kickstart five months of preparations and communications before we deliver on our promise, in October, to bring meaningful manufacturing experiences into the lives of our young people. “We want Bradford Manufacturing Weeks 2022 to be our most impactful yet. We can change lives, change futures and change perspectives on the career opportunities manufacturing brings – but we can’t do it alone. We need manufacturers and schools to register now on the Bradford Manufacturing Weeks website to ensure we can plan for and deliver the experiences in schools and onsite which will ensure our young people recognise and reach their potential.” Bradford Manufacturing Weeks 2022 will deliver a programme of events and opportunities for school and employer engagements.

ALSO APPEARED IN • Bradford Zone • Bradford T&A • Bradford Means Business • Yorkshire Business • Manufacturing & Engineering • Bdaily • FENews.co.uk • Business Up North • Keighley News READ ARTICLE ONLINE

CORPORATE, COMMERCIAL & EMPLOYMENT

Big Quiz charity fundraising

A fundraising quiz night organised and hosted by Yorkshire law firm, LCF Law, has raised over £1,600 for charity. The ‘LCF Law Big Northern Quiz’ was attended by 40 professionals from across Yorkshire and was held at The Adelphi in Leeds. It is the first time since 2019 that the event has been able to take place, following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prizes were awarded to the top three teams with a team from PK F Geoffrey Martin coming first. A team from Azets came second and a team from Sagars took third place. Cathy added: “Everyone had a great night and most importantly we raised a significant sum for Leeds Community Foundation’s The Leeds Fund.

All money will be donated to Leeds Community Foundation – a charitable organisation that distributes vital grants and gives trusted advice to community organisations across Leeds to influence positive change.

“The grants it distributes provide people with skills, education, health, culture and employment opportunities. As a Yorkshire business with a big presence in Leeds, we are proud to support our local communities via this wonderful charity.”

LCF Law’s partner and event organiser, Cathy Cook, said: “This is the fourth time that we have hosted the popular quiz, and this year’s efforts, plus additional donations from our firm, mean that we have raised a total of more than £4,500 for Leeds Community Foundation, which is a great result for everyone involved. The 10 teams of four were made up of professional services firms and clients, with rounds including pictures, Yorkshire rivers, sports, films and novelty, meaning there were questions for everyone.”

Development director at Leeds Community Foundation, Helen Ball, said: “We are hugely grateful to LCF Law for their ongoing commitment to Leeds Community Foundation, through membership and also via donations into The Leeds Fund. The fund distributes grants which help to shape a brighter future and provide a platform for communities to thrive in Leeds.”

CORPORATE, COMMERCIAL & EMPLOYMENT

ALSO APPEARED IN • Yorkshire Evening Post • Yorkshire Business Daily READ ARTICLE ONLINE

CORPORATE, COMMERCIAL & EMPLOYMENT

Rise of robotics in manufacturing causes plethora of legal issues

A rise in robotics in manufacturing creates novel legal issues that manufacturers will need to consider when introducing robotic solutions into the workplace, warns James Sarjantson, LCF Law’s digital, telecoms and commercial partner. As more duties and tasks than ever before are being automated in manufacturing, it brings both advantages and disadvantages. Advantages include speed and accuracy of the production and operations process, helping to make things smarter and cheaper, but at the same time there is also an increase in risk and potential liability. According to a recent report from PwC, 56% of manufacturers are using some form of robotics technology, but one of the key issues facing manufacturers is – who is liable if something goes wrong with a robot? Traditionally, when something went wrong with manufacturing machinery, it could generally be traced to either a defect in the machine itself or to the machine being incorrectly operated. However, in a robotic environment, faults might stem from the machine, or from the software which forms a part of the machine, or the systems which enable machines to communicate with one another, or from an intervention by a human operator.

This means that reviewing the contracts under which robotic lines are procured is more important than ever to ensure that manufacturers can apportion liability when it arises and recover any losses or costs which they incur as a result of any failures from the relevant supplier. Manufacturers will also need to make sure that they have insurance available to cover relevant additional risks. The increased use of robotics will also have several data protection implications. This is because the information a robot captures about employees through a camera, microphone or sensor for example, is likely to be personal data. Manufacturers therefore need to ensure that any personal data captured by a robot is processed in a way which accords with relevant privacy rules and their own policies that tell employees how the employer will deal with their personal data. Manufacturers will also need to be confident that the data and information captured by robotics is not being passed back to the supplier without authorisation.

CORPORATE, COMMERCIAL & EMPLOYMENT

Health & Safety is another key area of concern because deploying robots amongst a human workforce will naturally cause issues. Recent changes to sentencing guidelines mean that penalties for serious health and safety breaches can exceed £10m in some cases. Manufacturers must therefore engage with their health and safety advisers on this point and put appropriate policies and procedures in place. The increased use of robotics also creates issues around obsolescence. Traditional machinery manufacturers are sometimes required by customers (who have sufficient bargaining power) to make spare parts available for perhaps 10 years, but this is very difficult when dealing with robotics where a key element may be third party software, which may become obsolete or unsupported quicker than that. In terms of intellectual property, manufacturers must remember that while they may own the robot, they are likely to only get a licence to use the associated software. In the case of robots utilising AI, it is the user who is providing the data and stimuli which is facilitating the robot’s learning on site, but the user is unlikely to get any rights in respect of that.

Finally, if manufacturers seek to replace human workers with robots, they will of course need to follow all the relevant employment laws (including appropriate notice and appropriate consultation on any redundancies) and on a practical level will need to manage the transition in a way that limits any negative publicity. As long as manufacturers carefully consider all these elements of risk and liability, the advantages of robotics will undoubtedly outweigh the disadvantages moving forward, but it’s essential that manufacturers take the appropriate legal advice and get all their ducks in a row – especially the robotic ones! READ ARTICLE ONLINE

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On the spot with Thomas Taylor

CORPORATE, COMMERCIAL & EMPLOYMENT

An uncomfortable subject – vaccines for care staff

WHAT’S NEW?

An Uncomfortable Subject Do care homes that dismissed staff for not being vaccinated against Covid-19 have to offer people their old jobs back and can care homes now insist staff are vaccinated? Employment law specialist James Austin, from LCF Law, answers two of the care sector’s biggest questions. As you will know all too well, last year the government introduced a requirement that anyone working in a care home had to have had two vaccinations against Covid-19 by 11 November 2021, unless they were exempt. However, that requirement has now been revoked. Does this mean you have to re-employ the staff that you dismissed? The short answer is ‘no’. Employees have three months, from the date of the act they complain of, to bring a claim for either unfair dismissal or discrimination. Provided employees were dismissed fairly in the first place, most will be ‘out of time’ to bring a claim. Obviously, there may be advantages to re-employing some of those staff anyway, but if you do, their employment would start afresh. A common question we hear from care home operators, is whether they can still require staff to be vaccinated? Introducing a contractual requirement could give rise to claims of discrimination by employees who are unable to be vaccinated because of a disability, or employees who have chosen not to due to pregnancy, philosophical belief, religion or race. One way of addressing this would be to make exceptions in those instances. Failing that, if an employee brought a claim, you might argue the requirement was a proportionate means of achieving the legitimate aim of protecting residents. It remains to be seen whether that argument would succeed, but there must be doubts now the government has revoked both the requirement to be vaccinated and the social distancing rules, and the fact that vaccinated people can still catch and transmit the virus. Unfair dismissal is another risk. In one reported case, a care home instructed staff to get vaccinated (prior to the government requirement) and dismissed an employee who refused. A tribunal held that the dismissal was fair, but the decision was not at a high enough level to set a legal precedent. The tribunal also stressed their decision was based on the individual facts and shouldn’t be taken as a general rule. If you require existing staff to be vaccinated, you would have to change their contracts of employment, which requires their agreement. If they won’t agree, you can give them the notice required to terminate their employment and then offer to reengage them on a new contract which requires vaccination. twitter.com/TomorrowsCare

Dismissing and re-engaging employees who have over a year and fifty-one weeks’ service will give rise to possible unfair dismissal claims. However, this may not be an issue if all existing staff are already vaccinated (due to the revoked requirement) or exempt, and there is no unfair dismissal claim for staff who have less than a year and fifty-one weeks’ service or new staff. You will also need to collectively consult if you intend to impose the change on 20 or more employees, at one workplace, within a 90-day period. Failure to do that could result in employees receiving compensation of up to 90 days’ gross pay each. Such a requirement is also likely to be a breach of the ‘right to respect for private and family life’ which is set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. However, it may be possible to justify this if you can show the requirement is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. An example of this would be to reduce risks to residents, but it may be difficult to prove this given that people are still catching Covid-19 and getting ill despite being vaccinated. If you want to reduce those risks, you could instead introduce a vaccine policy – encouraging staff to get vaccinated and have their boosters – but this would make it harder to discipline or dismiss staff who refuse to get vaccinated. Whatever course of action you take, make sure you have taken legal advice from an employment law expert to avoid any costly mistakes. www.lcf.co.uk

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CORPORATE, COMMERCIAL & EMPLOYMENT

Queen’s Speech May 2022 – Employment Implications

Since 2019, the Government has been promising a new Employment Bill, covering matters such as extended flexible working rights, an expansion to the rules relating to pregnancy discrimination and ensuring that tips are paid in full to workers. It was hoped that parliamentary time might finally ‘allow’ for this to come to the fore, but did this appear in the Queen’s Speech on 10 May 2022? The answer is a resounding ‘no’, much to the disappointment of Unions and workers alike. The Employment Bill, as announced in 2019, was to include: • The creation of a new, single enforcement body, offering greater protections for workers. • Ensuring that tips left for workers are paid to them in full. • The introduction of a new right for all workers to request a more predictable contract. • An extension of redundancy protections to prevent pregnancy and maternity discrimination. • Allowing parents to take extended leave for neonatal care; and introducing an entitlement to one weeks leave for unpaid carers. • Subject to consultation, making flexible working the default unless employers have good reason not to.

However, it was notably missing from this week’s Speech. Indeed, employment issues as a whole seem to have taken a back seat, with reference only to introducing new Seafarer’s legislation, in light of the P&O debacle, which will allow ports to refuse access to ferry operators who do not pay at least the National Minimum Wage. That said, that does not mean that there will not be any changes to Employment laws over the coming year, as the Government has proposed legislation in the form of the Retained EU Law Bill, which will remove the supremacy of retained EU law over UK law. This may also impact on the rules of interpretation which apply to the UK Courts when interpreting UK legislation in light of EU law. Given the influence of EU legislation, particularly in the field of employment law, it remains to be seen what impact these proposed changes may have. READ ARTICLE ONLINE

FAMILY

It’s full-time for the divorce blame game

PROMOTION

IT’S FULL-TIME FOR THE DIVORCE BLAME GAME Rachel Spencer Robb, head of LCF Law’s family law team, explains the biggest shake up of divorce laws for 50 years Did you watch BBC One’s legal drama The Split? If you did, you will have seen played out the notion of ‘the good divorce’ – where parties are civil, respectful, accepting of the sad breakdown of a marriage but avoiding the blame game for the benefit of themselves and their wider family. Now, fiction has become a reality, as the new ‘no-fault’ legislation, which was introduced in April, means married couples are now able to divorce without blame. The changes to the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 enables couples to simply cite irreconcilable differences, as the reason for the divorce, either individually or together, without pointing the finger of blame. Prior to this, one party had to blame the breakdown of the relationship on the other party’s behaviour or, the parties had to have lived apart for two years or five years. These changes should reduce the acrimony and conflict that often arises at the outset of a divorce, setting a more civil and respectful tone for the rest of the proceedings. Other changes mean there is now a minimum period of 20 weeks, between

starting proceedings and applying for a ‘conditional order’ (formerly decree nisi). This is in response to concerns that the reforms make divorce a quicker and easier option and has been designed to encourage meaningful reflection. Once 20 weeks is up, there will then be a minimum wait of six weeks before a final order can be made, so divorcing will potentially now take longer. It’s also no longer possible to contest a divorce, except on limited grounds, including jurisdiction. Having worked exclusively in family law for more than 25 years, it’s clear that a no conflict approach to divorce is the best way forward, especially where there are children involved, and this is what we always advise clients to aim for, wherever possible and appropriate. I’ve worked with hundreds of families, helping them through divorce and separation, agreeing financial settlements and working through arrangements for children. Protecting the best interests of my clients and supporting them in their own journey, through one of the most traumatic experiences they will ever have, is always a priority in my work.

I also take pride in being a collaborative lawyer, which means offering clients all forms of dispute resolution, and one of the most rewarding elements of my job is helping clients avoid court action, where possible. Mediation is often preferable, cheaper and more straightforward than a court battle as well. LCF Law has offices in Leeds, Bradford, Harrogate, and Ilkley. Our aim is to be the best law firm in Yorkshire helping our clients to achieve their goals. In doing so the firm will deliver legal services which meet or exceed client expectations. n

Rachel Spencer Robb is a partner and head of LCF Law’s family law team as well as being a qualified mediator and an accredited specialist of Resolution. Contact Rachel on 01943 885790 or rspencerrobb@lcf.co.uk. Visit lcf.co.uk for more information.

DISPUTES

The Common Mistakes Homeowners Make When Building Extensions

Spending more time at home has made families desperate for space. But with property prices racing away and family houses in short supply, demand for home extensions is high. In the 12 months to September 2021, some 250,000 planning permissions were granted for extensions, estate agent Savills found. And this year the trend looks set to continue. Building an extension, annex and conservatory are among the top five home improvement projects for this year, according to tradesperson directory RatedPeople.com. But before you steam ahead with grand extension plans, make sure you know the rules or you’ll upset the neighbours and wind up out of pocket. Tom Edwards, partner in property disputes at LCF Law, said: “Homeowners must be cautious about getting into boundary and party wall disputes. It can affect the sale of their property and its value.

“Some homeowners think they are entitled to build on their land without considering neighbouring properties simply because it’s their land, or they think it is. “But they don’t appreciate the traps they can fall into which can irretrievably break down relations between neighbours and could end up costing them thousands of pounds.” Over the last two years, LCF has seen a 150% increase in boundary disputes between neighbours getting irate over home and garden improvements. Tom explains the most common reasons neighbours fall out over extensions and how it can be avoided. Know your boundaries Overstepping or misinterpreting property boundaries is a common cause of disputes, said Tom. Title plans can be misleading. A red line on the plan indicates where your general boundary lies, not its precise location.

DISPUTES

Tearing up fences to make way for your extension because you believe you own the land could cause a legal dispute. To avoid this, you can apply to Land Registry who will send a surveyor to your property to have your boundary determined. The Land Registry charges an application fee of £90. You’ll also have to pay surveying and legal fees. “Alternatively, you can sign an agreement with your neighbour describing where the boundary is,” said Tom. “Or you can play detective and review the original title deeds for your property, which in some cases could be 200 years old. “This can be very complicated so it’s best to seek advice from a specialist surveyor or solicitor to save you expense and stress in the future.” Party Wall Act notice The Party Wall Act 1996 is a piece of legislation designed to prevent and resolve disputes between neighbours over building or digging work that affects a party wall. A party wall is a wall shared between you and your neighbours common in semi-detached homes and terraces. However, your extension could fall under Party Wall rules. Tom said: “If you want to start building work within six metres of an adjoining owner’s home you need to be conscious that by digging foundations you may fall within the Party Wall Act, which means you must serve written notice to your neighbour of your plans.” A Party Wall notice must include the names of the owners planning the work, details of the construction, when it will start and be signed and dated.

Your neighbours could take you to court to force you to remove the trespass, which may mean you have to redesign or demolish your extension. If your extension has not been built according to your planning permission and your neighbour complains to the council, you could be issued with an enforcement notice telling you to demolish your extension to comply. Respect your neighbour’s rights Before you build your extension, check if any neighbours have rights over the land you own such as a right of way. “Let’s say there’s a footpath between two properties,” explained Tom. “The owner of that path might decide to extend their property on to it but by doing so they may be denying someone their right of way. “This could be unlawful, and an injunction could be taken out against you to take down your extension.” Your neighbour’s right to light is another factor to consider, adds Tom. This means they have the right to benefit from natural light, not sunlight. Homeowners can find out which rights come with their property by reading their title deeds. “Your title deeds might say a neighbour can’t build more than two stories up, for example, to protect your natural light,” said Tom. “Owners can also acquire rights to light over time. If you’ve had the benefit of natural light to your property for 20 years or more, even if it’s not in your deeds, it can become your legal right.” If your extension is blocking out next door’s natural light your neighbours could make a legal claim against you.

RICS has produced a guide for homeowners on Party Wall regulations. Your neighbours could take legal action if you don’t serve notice.

RICS’ consumer guide on Right to Light explains when your neighbours can make a claim.

Overhanging roof and guttering If you build your extension right up to the boundary of your property, even if the outside wall does not encroach on your neighbour’s land, the overhanging roof or guttering might. This is known as trespassing.

Right to Light is a common cause of neighbour disputes. One homeowner was upset after next door’s tree started to block sunlight into his garden. Elsewhere, we looked at one homeowner’s rights when he was concerned about his neighbour’s overgrowing bamboo. READ ARTICLE ONLINE