Crown Commercial Service Framework

Lot 2a – General Service Provision (England and Wales)

We can provide legal advice and support in relation to the following specialisms under this Lot:

• property and construction
• social housing
• child social services
• court of protection
• education
• debt recovery
• planning and environment
• licensing
• pensions
• litigation/dispute resolution
• intellectual property
• employment
• healthcare

Lot 2a – Property & Construction

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to the following:

All aspects of real estate and real estate finance including but not limited to

• crown, commercial and residential real estate including investment
• site/property redevelopment
• acquisition and disposal (including relevant tax advice)
• compulsory purchase
• freehold, leasehold and licences
• landlord and tenant matters
• real estate litigation

All aspects of construction law including but not limited to

• advice and support in relation to construction and infrastructure projects

Services – Lot 2a: Property & Construction

Our recent experience includes:

• We advised Coleg Gwent on the £60m Newport Knowledge Quarter. This is one of the main projects to be funded by the Welsh Government Mutual Investment Model (“MIM”) as well as involving capital funding from the local authority. We have been advising on the structure of the transaction, access agreements, option and pre-emption agreements and shared occupational arrangements.
• We successfully represented the Welsh Government in an arbitration against Costain Limited in connection with cost and schedule overruns on a £340 million project to expand an eight-kilometre stretch of the A465 Heads of the Valleys road in South Wales.

Lot 2a – Social Housing

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of social housing law, including but not limited to:

• funding and finance
• housing management
• disputes
• planning and development.

Services – Lot 2a: Social Housing

Our recent experience includes:

• We are advising Linc Cymru Housing Association on a city centre regeneration project of the indoor market in Pentrebane Caerphilly. This involved dealing with complex title issues, advising on the CPO process, state aid issues and on the funding being provided under the Transforming Towns Programme via the Targeted Regeneration Investment Fund and Social Housing Grant programme.
• We are acting for Melin Homes Limited in connection with the development of a site that they acquired from Monmouthshire County Council. The £43m development will include 291 homes, a 48-bed care home and open space. We advised on funding issues, construction contract strategy, site set-up, infrastructure agreements and the transfer of part of the site to Melin’s open market subsidiary organisation, Candleston Homes.

Lot 2a – Child Social Services

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of child law, including but not limited to:

• adoption
• social work
• child-related and child protection issues.

Services – Lot 2a: Child Social Services

Our recent experience includes:

• We have for many years delivered child protection services to Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council, which has previously comprised a case load of around 40 public law cases per year.
• We have acted as legal advisers to the committees and panels convened by the Care Council for Wales and Social Care Wales since 2011. During that time we have dealt with more than a thousand hearings in cases involving many hundreds of registered persons, with many cases involving advising on child protection regulation.
• We are a sole supplier to Cardiff Council for advice on child protection matters.

Lot 2a – Court of Protection

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of court of protection law, including but not limited to:

• the safeguarding responsibilities of local authorities
• appointment of deputies
• disputes regarding registration of powers of attorney
• medical treatment decisions.

Services – Lot 2a: Court of Protection

Our recent experience includes:

• We acted for a local authority in its application to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court. The case concerned X, a 14-year-old with significantly reduced mental capacity who weighs more than 19 stone and poses a severe physical risk to himself and his mother. X was accommodated in an adapted hospital ward with a high ratio of carers and, when necessary to prevent significant injury, the use of sedation. His care was transferred to his home with a specially trained team of 24-hour carers during the course of proceedings and it is intended that a bespoke residential placement will be built for X to meet his needs in the long-term. The High Court exercised its jurisdiction to authorise the deprivation of X’s liberty in the hospital and home settings in what is thought to be a novel use of those powers. Our team undertook all drafting, including preparation of a detailed skeleton argument summarising the existing law and conducted our own advocacy throughout.

Lot 2a – Education

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of education law, including but not limited to:

• early years
• all aspects of schools and schooling
• school workforce
• special educational needs
• admissions and exclusions
• equalities issues
• pupil/student related litigation
• governance and re-organisation issues
• inspection and regulation
• finance and funding issues
• higher and further education
• student finance
• education-focused charity
• contract and property law issues relevant to the educational sector.

Services – Lot 2a: Education

Our recent experience includes:

• We advised Cardiff University on the TUPE transfer of over 300 staff and 3,000 training courses from the University to a newly created body, Health Education and Improvement Wales.
• We assisted a school in relation to an investigation conducted by the ICO into a data breach.
• We drafted policies and procedures on behalf of the Welsh Government giving non-statutory guidance for the Department for Education and Skills in relation to the capability of school teaching staff and headteachers.

Lot 2a – Planning & Environment

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to the following:

All aspects of planning law, including but not limited to

• planning strategy
• development projects and schemes
• applications for development, construction and change of use
• compulsory purchase orders and s106 agreements
• planning / development inquiries and appeals.

All aspects of environmental law, including but not limited to

• litigation
• advisory and transactional support on environmental matters including due diligence
• planning
• inquiries and regulatory compliance.

Services – Lot 2a: Planning & Environment

Our recent experience includes:

• We advised Witham Town Council regarding challenging a decision made by Braintree District Council to grant planning permission on a site which is protected as ‘visually important’.
• We represented our client Welsh Government at a four-day public enquiry relating to the submission of a Town and Village Green application to develop 460 residential dwellings on land allocated for residential development at Miskin, South Wales.
• We advised Monmouthshire County Council on securing permission from the Planning Inspectorate to improve the village green at Chippenham Mead in Monmouth town centre. There was considerable local pressure to undertake the works, and also an anti-works lobby opposing the application. We achieved the outcome the client sought within a short timescale.

Lot 2a – Licensing

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of licensing law, including but not limited to:

• licensing for sales of alcohol or regulated entertainment
• taxi licensing
• licences and permits for gambling
• licensing due diligence.

Services – Lot 2a: Licensing

Our recent experience includes:

• We have advised the Welsh Government and its agencies, including Cadw, the Welsh equivalent of Historic England, on the licensing of visitor centres within Welsh castles.
• We have advised on licensing issues in relation to university campus bars.

Lot 2a – Pensions

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of pensions law, including but not limited to:

• private and public sector pension schemes
• pensions litigation
• regulatory compliance
• trusteeship
• other employee benefits.

Services – Lot 2a: Pensions

Our recent experience includes:

• We were instructed to advise a social housing provider in relation to its proposal to change its defined benefit pension offering. We advised on the consultation process to follow and whether the Occupational and Personal Pension Scheme (Consultation by Employers and Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2006 were applicable. We also advised on the proposed communications with employees and the approach to take to ensure the proposed change is clearly explained and the implications of the change understood.
• We recently successfully defended an application made to the Court of Appeal, where judgment in our client’s favour was upheld.

Lot 2a – Litigation/Dispute Resolution

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of litigation/dispute resolution including but not limited to:

• Civil litigation against and on behalf of buyers, including alternative dispute resolution, arbitration, mediation, contractual resolution procedures, advocacy and early advice on disputes.
• This should also include personal injury litigation, including public liability and employer’s liability.

Services – Lot 2a: Litigation/Dispute Resolution

Our recent experience includes:

• We acted for Natural Resources Wales, successfully defending a claim at first instance in the High Court in 2020. The claimants appealed part of the first instance decision, which was heard by the Court of Appeal in the summer of 2021. The claim involved an in-depth consideration of almost all the fundamental principles of property law, from the way in which freehold tenure has developed in England and Wales to question of adverse possession. Both the trial in the High Court and the appeal were hybrid trials, with largely only judges and counsel in court. The appeal was streamed on YouTube. The defendant was also successful on appeal on all counts.
• We are acting for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board in its breach of contract claim, with an estimated value of over £3.5m, against the software provider CareWorks Limited. CareWorks Limited was instructed to assist with the integration of a single health and care package throughout Wales. The claim arises because of allegations of contractual failures caused by significant delays on the part of the IT service provider and/or a third party who, whilst not contractually bound, has been actively involved in the project and has caused a number of the resultant delays which have given rise to significant losses.

Lot 2a – Intellectual Property

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of intellectual property law including but not limited to:

• contentious and non-contentious support and advice relating to patents, copyright, trademarks, trade secrets and rights in confidential information, database rights, design rights, and other forms of intellectual property
• assignment and licensing of rights and commercialisation and exploitation of intellectual property

Services – Lot 2a: Intellectual Property

Our recent experience includes:

• We advised Welsh Government on its partnership agreement with the BBC in Wales relating to the funding of television production and funding of new IP. This was a high-profile piece of work and very important to the television production sector in Wales.
• We advised on an IP dispute involving a leading Welsh university.

Lot 2a – Employment

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of employment law including but not limited to:

• non-contentious employment matters relating to TUPE, COSOP, redundancies, restructuring, outsourcing, changes in terms and conditions, and reorganisations
• contentious employment law including litigation and dispute resolution

Services – Lot 2a: Employment

Our recent experience includes:

• We acted for the City and County of Swansea, successfully defending two separate highly complex claims (one which was in the Employment Tribunal and another which was currently in the Employment Appeal Tribunal). Both claims included allegations of whistleblowing, disability discrimination and unfair dismissal.
• We provide a full range of employment law advice to Tai Tarian, a large social landlord with responsibility for over 9,000 properties. Our Employment team advised this client in relation to a high-profile Employment Appeal Tribunal claim. The claimant had worked for our client for more than 14 years and was alleged to have made a homophobic comment to a tenant. Our client’s investigation found the allegation to have been proven and the claimant was summarily dismissed. In unfair dismissal proceedings commenced by the claimant, the ET did not accept that our client held a genuine belief that the claimant had made homophobic comments as alleged and concluded the complaint of unfair dismissal was well founded. We lodged an appeal with the EAT, following which the EAT upheld our client’s appeal in its entirety and remitted the matter to a fresh ET for rehearing.

Lot 2a – Healthcare

This lot covers legal advice and services in relation to all aspects of healthcare law including but not limited to:

• advising on the structure and implementation of new models
• advising on governance, commissioning, inquiries, inquests, and regulatory proceedings, and on all conceivable commercial, employment and contentious matters within the healthcare sector
• providing advice on all aspects of legislation relevant to either healthcare or mental health
• advising on and providing representation at tribunals

Services – Lot 2a: Healthcare

Our recent experience includes:

• We advised the Development Bank of Wales and the Business Growth Fund (BGF) on their £3.8m investment into healthtech start-up Ceryx Medical Ltd.
• We advised Shaw healthcare on the award of contracts to operate 12 care homes in Powys from Powys County Council.
• We are acting for Aneurin Bevan University Health Board in its breach of contract claim, with an estimated value of over £3.5m against the software provider CareWorks Limited, which was instructed to assist with the integration of a single health and care package throughout Wales.

Lot 3 – Transport Rail Legal Services

We are one of only ten firms appointed to the framework to advise on rail legal services.

Services – Lot 3: Transport Rail Legal Services

Services that we can offer under this Lot include all aspects of transport and rail law, including but not limited to:

• Rail transport law
• Rolling stock
• Planning and authorisation (Rail)
• Projects and infrastructure (Rail)