Which charities will benefit from this funding and when – Key Services?
The Government will allocate £360 million to charities providing key services and supporting vulnerable people during the crisis. £200 million of this amount will be paid to Hospices UK to be distributed to hospices to help increase capacity and give stability to the sector. The remaining amount is to be allocated to:
- St Johns Ambulance to support the NHS
- victims charities, including domestic abuse, to help with potential increase in demand for charities providing these services
- charities supporting vulnerable children, so they can continue delivering services on behalf of local authorities;
- disabled people
- Citizens Advice Bureau to increase the number of staff providing advice during this difficult time
The Government Departments will identify priority recipients, with the aim that these charities will receive money in the form of a cash grant over the next few weeks and by the end of April to assist in paying amongst other costs April’s wage bill.
Related FAQs
The guidance is helpful and is likely to be useful to businesses as they seek to respond to the crisis and to restart their business activities as lockdown is eased. However, there remain outstanding questions. For example, can collaboration to prevent widespread insolvencies be viewed as in the interest of consumers? Businesses need to remain aware of the extremely high stakes involved in relation to competition law. Businesses contemplating collaboration with competitors should take legal advice before doing so.
The European Commission has reintroduced its “comfort letter” system for cooperation in relation to shortage of supply. This allows cooperating businesses to check what the Commission’s view of their proposals are before implementing them.
In the UK context the SMA has introduced an exemption for suppliers of healthcare services to the NHS. This allows:
- Sharing information about capacity
- Coordination of staff deployment
- Joint purchasing of goods, services and facilities
- Sharing or lending of facilities
- Division of activities, including agreeing whether to expand or reduce the volume or type of services provided by suppliers
In relation to whether the CMA will investigate cooperation, it has indicated:
- The CMA will use its discretion as to the prioritisation of its enforcement action to permit some agreements/collaboration which would otherwise potentially give rise to enforcement action (including potentially attracting fines of up to 10% of group worldwide turnover)
- The CMA will use its existing power to exempt certain agreements under the Competition Act 1998 where these are in the public interest
The latest Cabinet Office guidance published Monday 6 April 2020 titled ‘Procurement Policy Note PPN 02/20: Additional guidance. FAQs and model terms for construction’ provides model deeds of variation for JCT and NEC3 contracts to provide for such payments to be made. As the Cabinet Office guidance states, legal advice is likely to be required to make sure that the model variations work with your specific contracts. Please contact one of our construction specialists if you need advice and assistance.
For a copy of the guidance note click here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878338/PPN_02_20._Additional_guidance__FAQS_and_model_terms_for_construction.pdf
Mortuaries are a sui generis use, unless ancillary to some other use of land, a hospital for example.
Sui generis uses are not within any Use Class. Consequently planning permission is required for the:
- Change in the use to a sui generis use
- Subsequently for the change in the use to an alternative use, whether that be another sui generis use or a use within a Use Class
Acknowledging the above, if the scale of the use is above de minimis, planning permission is likely to be required to change the use of a warehouse or factory unit into a temporary mortuary.
Should planning control be breached, a local planning authority must decide whether to take enforcement action or not. That enforcement is discretionary was recently reiterated in a Ministerial Statement issued on 13 March 2020 a link to which is below.
Depending on the form of the enforcement action, there could be a right of appeal.
The Home Office has provided useful guidance on how to carry out a compliant Right to Work check using the temporary adjustments in place for Covid-19. In summary:
- You will need to ask the job applicant to send you digital copies of their original documents, for example by scan, photo or mobile app.
- Hold a video call with the job applicant and ask them to show their original documents on camera so you can check them against the digital copies you have already received.
- On the date you made the check, record that you have done this by using the following wording “adjusted check undertaken on [insert date] due to Covid-19”. Evidence of right to work checks still need to be held securely either in paper or electronic format.
- You can use the online RTW checking service where the job applicant has Biometric Residence Permit or pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme. You should do this whilst on the video call with the applicant/employee, and you must first obtain their permission to view their details on this scheme.