Mental Health is a Health and Safety Issue
Health and safety at work is not limited to physical harm. Employers’ duties extend to mental health, including assessing and managing work-related stress. The HSE’s Management Standards set out six areas that contribute to it if poorly managed: demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. Psychosocial risks are often harder to handle than physical ones: […]
Fire Safety Approved Document B
Amendments to Approved Document B (fire safety) took effect on 30 September 2026. The headline change introduced guidance for a second common staircase in new blocks of flats with a top storey 18 metres or more in height, aligning broadly with the threshold applied to the higher-risk building regime. The amendments revise the guidance on […]
Important Safeguarding Change
From 1 September 2026, the “supervision exemption” has been removed from the definition of regulated activity with children under the Crime and Policing Act 2026. Roles previously outside regulated activity because the person was supervised may now fall within it, bringing more volunteers and other supervised roles within the regulated activity regime, enhanced DBS checks […]
The “Hillsborough Law”
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords on 1 September 2026. In its current form, it will create a statutory duty of candour and assistance for public authorities and officials, new statutory offences relating to breaches of that duty and misleading the public will replace the common law […]
Workplace Investigations – instruct early
We recently advised a corporate client that believed it had nothing to hide and delayed instructing solicitors until the investigation had grown beyond what it could manage. The consequences were significant: documents were disclosed unnecessarily, unhelpful communications were generated, and data protection was inadvertently breached, all while attempting to demonstrate cooperation. Early legal advice does […]
Statutory Review PPE Duties and “Limb (b)” Workers
The Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations 2022 extended employers’ PPE duties beyond employees to “limb (b)” workers, broadly, those with a more casual employment relationship who work under a contract for service, following a 2020 court ruling that the UK had under-implemented EU requirements. The Regulations require the first post-implementation review to be […]
ICO Turns To Agentic AI
According to the ICO’s published guidance plans, a public consultation on new agentic AI guidance is due to launch this month, with final guidance expected in spring 2027. This follows its consultation earlier this year on updated automated decision-making and profiling guidance, revised to reflect the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. Final ADM guidance […]
Safe on paper, unsafe in practice: when a documented system won’t protect you
Many businesses that find themselves facing enforcement action already have a risk assessment. These days that often isn’t the problem. The difficulty lies in the gap between the system on paper and what happens in practice. A case in the news this month illustrates the point. Factory Services UK Limited was fined £160,000 at Warrington […]
HEALTHCARE FOCUS: The CQC is coming: inspection volumes are rising sharply
For those in health and social care, one development deserves your particular attention. Forecast: CQC inspection activity is accelerating, fast. Under its improvement plan, the CQC has committed to publishing 9,000 assessments by the end of September 2026 and it is on track. By late 2025 it had already published over 4,300 assessments, running roughly […]
Martyn’s Law
Martyn’s Law is now sufficiently clear to prepare for. The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 applies to certain publicly accessible premises and events. Although the Act is not expected to come into force until spring 2027, Home Office statutory guidance has now been published and the Security Industry Authority has set out its approach as […]