Department of Education consults on rationalising post-16 qualifications that compete with T Levels by 2023

According to its recently published consultation paper, the Department of Education (“DfE”) considers that with “more than 12,000 different qualifications funded in England at level 3 and below”. The quality of education and skills provided across the piece do not provide the world class technical education that the DfE is aiming for. The proposal is …
Read more

Merger and real estate

Planning and organisation are important for a successful merger. One aspect of this is to identify, at the outset, any real estate implications that are likely to be involved.
Read more

Victoria Hordern speaks to LexisNexis on data transfers—the aftermath of Schrems II

Victoria Hordern, partner and head of our data privacy team, has recently been interviewed by LexisNexis to consider the impact of the judgment taken by the Court of Justice on 16 July 2020 in the Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Ltd, Maximillian Schrems (Schrems II) case on European data protection law. This decision by …
Read more

Gift Aid and refunds of advance entry fees

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted charities to consider refunding donations that allow entry to visitor attractions. Gift Aid rules mean that this needs to be handled carefully. Bill Lewis and Susan Shi explain the finer points of entry refunds.
Read more

Coronavirus and recruitment in the UK

Our client was looking to hire a candidate already in the UK on a Tier 2 visa, initially on a part-time basis for a few months and then full-time. As all application centres in the UK are currently closed, leave to remain applications are being put on hold for the moment. We therefore advised our …
Read more

International recruitment queries

During the coronavirus pandemic our team have been assisting clients with issues such as if they have made offers of employment to candidates based outside of the UK. In such cases, the candidates were in the process of submitting their visa applications when the pandemic began to affect in the UK and many countries abroad. …
Read more

Anatomy of a rebrand – from BWB to Bates Wells

In June 2019, we stopped being Bates Wells Braithwaite, or BWB, and became simply ‘Bates Wells’. Catharina Waller gives the lawyer’s inside track on our recent brand refresh.
Read more

Personnel Today: Chetal Patel provides ten top tips on how employers can negotiate the Home Office sponsor licence regime

In a concise summary for Personnel Today of how the government’s sponsor licence regime impacts employers, Chetal Patel set out ten key points leadership teams need to be aware of if they want to stay on the right side of the Home Office’s regulations in this area. Describing the current status of sponsor licences, Chetal …
Read more

IR35 – What does your organisation need to know?

What is IR35? IR35 is a set of rules targeting the tax treatment of individual contractors who provide their services through an intermediary (most commonly a personal service company – “PSC”). PSCs are often owned and controlled by an individual contractor and an organisation (“the End Client”) will then contract with that PSC to obtain …
Read more

EU Settlement Scheme: new appeal rights

Appeal rights have now been introduced for those who submit applications under the EU Settlement Scheme. This is good news for those who are submitting their applications after the UK left the EU at 11pm on 31 January 2020.  We previously commented on the EU Settlement Scheme statistics, which show that by the end of December …
Read more

BatesCast: Coronavirus and the UK Real Estate Market

With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continuing to cause unprecedented disruption for organisations across a range of sectors, our latest edition to the BatesCast Updates series sees us sit down with Karli Hiscock in our Real Estate department to discuss what the impact the pandemic and the Coronavirus Act might have on the real estate market in the UK. In …
Read more

Mairead O’Reilly writes for Data Guidance: Children and compliance within the data protection landscape

Mairead O’Reilly, senior associate in our Data Privacy team, has written for Data Guidance on how the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the lives of citizens everywhere, and arguably no group more so than children. In her article, Mairead discusses how the shutting down of schools, cultural establishments, and the simultaneous curtailment of recreational opportunities …
Read more