Precise legal advice for public and private clients
Commissioning decisions are decisions about people. This article sets out how public authorities can show that due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty was genuinely exercised before a contract is let — and why an equality impact assessment completed after the recommendation is agreed rarely survives scrutiny.
Public bodies are using short-term occupation to bring empty assets back into use, but flexibility depends on legal characterisation and a clean exit. This note sets out a 2026 drafting and approval checklist covering tenure, subsidy control, operational assurance and evidence for termination.
Admitting a contractor to the Local Government Pension Scheme creates a long-tail liability that can outlast the service contract itself. This article explains why pension terms belong in the governance chain — from procurement through contract management to exit — rather than being left to finance teams alone.
Informal leniency is often a sensible response to operational pressure, but tolerated non-compliance can harden into waiver by conduct or estoppel and collide with contract variation and procurement rules. This article sets out how public bodies can preserve discretion through recorded decisions, reservation of rights and clear delegated authority.
A Section 114 report is a statutory governance trigger, not a general signal that contracts can be paused or rewritten. This guide sets out how councils and suppliers should classify obligations, control delegated authority and record decisions when financial failure threatens.
Selling, leasing or transferring public land is a governance decision long before it is a property transaction. This guide sets out the best consideration duty, the consent routes for below-value deals, community asset transfer, overage and clawback, and the evidential file that should exist before heads of terms are signed.
Pre-market engagement can sharpen specifications and improve value for money, but it also concentrates risk: unequal treatment, incumbent advantage and a record that cannot show why documents changed. This article sets out a disciplined approach to scoping, recording and evidencing consultation so that influence is visible without becoming advantage.
A strong business case can still fail the first legal question: whether the public body has power to act. This article sets out a practical vires and decision-record discipline for councils and other public bodies considering companies, joint ventures and land development in 2026.
A failed supplier, a flooded site or a system taken offline can make a direct award feel like the only sensible option. The extreme urgency ground in the Procurement Act 2023 is narrower than that instinct suggests, and the evidence has to exist before the contract is signed, not after the dust settles.
Public bodies increasingly use contracts to pursue decarbonisation, but loose carbon commitments can generate disputes, funding mismatches and uninsurable exposure. This article sets out a practical risk-allocation framework for net zero clauses, from measurement and verification to grant flow-down and enforceable remedies.
Shared legal teams can blur the line between lawyer and client, and with it the confidentiality on which legal advice privilege depends. This article sets out a practical governance perimeter for marking, sharing and retaining advice across councils, committees, delivery companies and external partners in 2026.
The Christmas period compresses decision-making into a fortnight when the people who normally sign things are away. This article sets out how public bodies can refresh their schemes of delegation, fix an out-of-hours approval route and record urgent decisions so that the December 2026 recess is governed, not improvised.
The award decision is signed off long before the challenge risk is settled. This article looks at the standstill period as a controlled act of disclosure, examining where award notifications and debriefs most often go wrong and setting out a defensible routine for managing the clock from notice to signature.
A variation clause governs how a contract may change; it does not decide whether the change is lawful without fresh competition. This article sets out a practical framework for testing post-award modifications against the Procurement Act 2023, and for building the approval record that makes the outcome defensible.
Most local authority delivery companies do not lose the Teckal exemption in a single, dramatic moment; they lose it by increments, as trading income grows and control quietly loosens. This article sets out how the control and activity conditions are evidenced, where commercial expansion creates exposure, and what a defensible pre-expansion review should look like.
Public bodies depend on supplier systems, but cyber security is often documented in assurances rather than enforceable contract terms. This article identifies the clauses that turn security promises into measurable duties and explains how to calibrate them to service risk.
Exit clauses are frequently tested only after a termination notice has been served, when the contracting authority’s leverage is weakest and continuity is most exposed. This article argues that exit readiness should be treated as a standing governance control, with contract managers and legal teams stress-testing transition assistance, data return, asset registers and knowledge transfer before the event.
Board minutes, delegated authority records and variation approvals are often treated as administrative housekeeping. When audit, FOI, procurement challenge or contract dispute arrives, they become the evidence on which the public body's position depends. This article sets out how to build a decision trail that can withstand scrutiny.
When the same individuals or organisations act for a public body and a private delivery partner, a conflict register is only useful if it changes decisions. This article sets out how to identify blurred roles early, record judgments defensibly and build a register that survives procurement challenge, audit and public scrutiny.
Subsidy control is not confined to large industrial support. It applies to many grants, loan guarantees and discounted property transactions. This advisory note offers a repeatable sequence for identifying subsidies, applying the principles and building a record that can withstand scrutiny.