Tag: High Court

Why is HMCTS causing a “vexing level of uncertainty”?

Why is HMCTS causing a “vexing level of uncertainty”?

Why is HMCTS causing a “vexing level of uncertainty”?

                                  

By John Brace (Editor)
and
Leonora Brace (Co-Editor)

First publication date: 4th March 2021, 16:35 (BST).

Royal Courts of Justice, London, UK (resized). Picture credit sjiong, made available under the CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
Royal Courts of Justice, London, UK (resized). Picture credit sjiong, made available under the CC BY-SA 2.0 licence.

Below is a copy of HMCTS’ response to my recent complaint, followed by my response. Just for information I made this complaint by email last year in response to a letter, then I recently followed it up over the lack of response. Refunds tend to come via Her Majesty’s Paymaster General and despite what it states in the response below a refund of nine pounds has not been received.
Continue reading “Why is HMCTS causing a “vexing level of uncertainty”?”

What's happened on the 6th floor of Wirral Council's Chamber of Secrets for it to sue for over £300,000?

What’s happened on the 6th floor of Wirral Council’s Chamber of Secrets for it to sue for over £300,000?

What’s happened on the 6th floor of Wirral Council’s Chamber of Secrets for it to sue for over £300,000?

                                                             

Last year I requested various legal invoices during the 2013/14 audit of Wirral Council. One of these is below:

Wirral Council invoice Trowers & Hamlins £10,151.04 20th February 2014
Wirral Council invoice Trowers & Hamlins £10,151.04 20th February 2014

The invoice above is from Trowers & Hamlins and is for work connected to a court case to do with the 6th floor of Castle Chambers (a building owned and rented out by the Merseyside Pension Fund which is part of Wirral Council).

The court fee of £1,670 means this invoice is to do with to a civil court case in the High Court (in which Wirral Council is the claimant) to recover a sum of money where the amount exceeds £300,000 or an amount that is not limited.

What is blacked out under the heading Professional services provided appears to end in “6th floor Castle Chambers – Merseyside Pension Fund for the period to 31 01 2014”

So why all the secrecy surrounding the 6th floor at Castle Chambers? What was the outcome of the case and did the expenditure of £10,151.04 with Trowers & Hamlins lead to Wirral Council recovering any money?

Below is an earlier invoice about the same matter for £5,749.44.

Wirral Council invoice Trowers and Hamlins £5,749.44 13th August 2013
Wirral Council invoice Trowers and Hamlins £5,749.44 13th August 2013

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Wirral Council loses court battles to overturn government’s £177 million allocation to Merseyside of European money

Wirral Council loses court battles to overturn government’s £177 million allocation to Merseyside of European money

Wirral Council loses court battles to overturn government’s £177 million allocation to Merseyside of European money

                                

Earlier this year, there was a hearing in the High Court where the local councils within the Sheffield City Region (Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Doncaster Borough Council, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, Sheffield City Council) and the Liverpool City Region (Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Liverpool City Council, Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council, St Helens Borough Council and Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council) challenged by way of judicial review decisions by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills made last year involving how EU Structural Funds between 2014 to 2020 were divided up to different countries within the UK and for the same period how they were divided within the English regions.

To sum up the case briefly, the nine local councils asked the court to quash both decisions so that they could be reconsidered. The Liverpool City Region had been given €221.9 million (about £177 million) and the Sheffield City Region €203.4 million (about £162.3 million) over the 6 years. Comparing 2014 allocations to 2013 allocations and taking into account a 4.3% reserve of funds by the government, South Yorkshire was getting €23 million in 2014 compared to €20 million in 2013 with the Liverpool City Region getting €26 million in 2014 compared to €23 million in 2013.

Mr Jason Coppel QC for the various councils listed above only managed to convince Mr Justice Stewart (over a two-day hearing in January) that the Defendant had breached the public sector equality duty, specifically s. 149(1)(a) and s.149(1)(b) of the Equality Act 2010 c.15. The decisions weren’t quashed and the various councils appealed this decision to the Court of Appeal.

The Court of Appeal heard this case over two days on the 30th June and 1st July. In the appeal decision Dyson, Kay and Floyd LJJ concluded that “we are satisfied that the judge came to the right conclusions on all the main issues and essentially for the right reasons. This appeal is therefore dismissed” and “In our view, the judge was right to reject this domestic law challenge to the decisions”.

At this point you’re probably left wondering, how much did these two legal battles (neither of which resulted in the decisions being overturned) cost Wirral Council? Secondly, should public money be being used to challenge political decisions of ministers when there aren’t enough legal grounds to have those decisions overturned?

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