Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31October 2016 LocalGovernmentLawyer 4 Some two thirds of heads of legal and senior dispute resolution lawyers (64%) expect the number of cases involving their local authority to rise in the foreseeable future, research for the Local Government Lawyer Dispute Resolution 2016 supplement has found. One in five also predict that this rise in disputes will be ‘significant’, at a time when local government finances remain under huge pressure. The pressures are greatest in adult social care, with 78% of respondents forecasting more cases. Factors behind this include the seismic impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Cheshire West case on deprivations of liberty in care homes and hospitals, and the implementation of the Care Act 2014, a landmark piece of legislation that was intended to rationalise a very disparate array of laws. More people are being deprived of their liberty in community settings, notes one respondent, adding that the Care Act had also now had time to ‘bed-in’ and “people are now starting to become aware of their entitlements”. The Law Commission’s belief that the Act would in fact see a reduction in local authorities’ legal spend – thanks to the consolidation of laws in the area – looks hugely over-optimistic. The next area where growth is most widely forecast is education and special educational needs (60%), with government reforms including the introduction of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans seen as one of the key drivers for this. As one respondent says, there are “higher expectations of local authorities from parents in education matters”. The furore in June this year over tweets issued by law firm Baker Small, which prompted a number of local authorities to bring the handling of education cases back in-house, has only added to the challenges. Unsurprisingly, child protection was also high on the list, with 55% of respondents predicting an increase in cases. The rise in the number of child care proceedings has been a long term trend ever since the Baby P case; however, a number of years have now passed and there seems no sign of a levelling off. In the two most recent issues of his View from the President’s Chambers, the President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, noted how such cases were rising “seemingly relentlessly”, and highlighted Cafcass figures showing that in the 12 months to March 2016 there were 12,781 Balancing act What are the trends in local government dispute resolution? What do local authority lawyers think of government reforms to the justice system? And what strategies are council legal teams employing to manage their workloads? Philip Hoult outlines the findings from the Dispute Resolution 2016 survey. The pressures are greatest in adult social care, with 78% of respondents forecasting more cases. Factors behind this include the seismic impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Cheshire West case on deprivations of liberty in care homes and hospitals, and the introduction of the Care Act.