How is the Court of Protection dealing with matters during the Coronavirus pandemic?
The current situation with the coronavirus pandemic has presented obvious challenges to the effective and fair operation of the Court of Protection (COP). Remote access to the COP has therefore become a necessity to ensure that hearings continue to provide proper access to justice. All parties involved in such cases have a responsibility in achieving this primary aim.
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£370 million will be available to support small and medium-sized charities who are at the heart of local communities and which are making a big difference during the outbreak, including those delivering food, essential medicines and providing financial advice. These monies will be distributed by organisations including the National Lottery Community Fund for those in England. It is understood these monies will need to be applied for. The application system for the National Lottery Community Fund grant pot is expected to be operational within a period of weeks.
Employers should ensure that apprentices are paid at least the Apprenticeship Minimum Wage, National Living Wage or National Minimum Wage (AMW/NLW//NMW) as appropriate (and taking into account the new rates which will take effect from 1 April 2021) for training carried out where their wage received through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme does not cover this.
Residents will be obliged to:
- Not act in a way that creates a significant risk of a building safety risk materialising
- Not interfere with building safety equipment in the common parts
- Comply with an Accountable Person’s request for information in relation to the assessment and management of building safety risks.
The Accountable Person then has powers in relation to these duties, including:
- Issuing a contravention notice, requiring a resident to pay for replacement or repair of safety equipment which they have interfered with
- Applying for court orders in certain situations
- Requesting access at a reasonable time (in writing with at least 48 hours’ notice) to a resident’s property for the purposes of assessing or managing building safety risks, or checking compliance with the resident’s duties as above.
Secondary legislation is still awaited to bring these provisions into force, so the timing is unknown, but it will likely be within the next 12 months in line with the anticipated timetable for the remainder of the Act.
This is likely to be a common situation and employers and employees are going to have to take a pragmatic approach. You could enter into a temporary flexible working arrangement perhaps agreeing to vary working hours/days or reducing targets or agree to use some annual leave.
Employees could ask to take a period of unpaid leave, asserting their right to time off to care for a dependant but the lack of pay is likely to be unappealing.
Alternatively employees who are unable to work because they have caring responsibilities as a result of COVID-19, which includes childcare responsibilities, can be furloughed.
Although an employer is obliged to conduct consultation “with a view to reaching an agreement”, it is not required to actually agree to any counter proposals made by the employee representatives. Merely to consider them in good faith.