In May's E-Legal: Advice on mineral rights in "Your place or mine?", procurement advice for academies and public sector bodies plus details of our latest events. 

Public procurement expert Leigh Child examines the procurement responsibilities of Academies.  

Information law specialist Caroline Redhead looks at how public authorities handle frivolous freedom of information requests. 

Following the introduction of the Equality Act 2010, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been tasked with completing a consultation with a view to preparing Codes of Practice to assist institutions and businesses in their aim to be compliant with the Equality Act.  In order to assist Further and Higher Education providers, the Commission is drafting the Code of Practice in Further and Higher Education.

Caroline Redhead, an information law specialist explains the Information Commissioner's analysis of proposals to change data protection legislation. 

The recent Employment Appeal Tribunal decision in the above case provides clarification on what constitutes “an organised grouping of employees” in relation to a service provision change.

Employment law solicitor Aaron Lyons looks at the impact of a recent Employment Appeal decision on fixed term workers. 

The Information Commissioner has recently published a new guide to freedom of information described as a “plain English guide”.

The current economic climate has seen many employers looking at redundancy procedures in order to cut costs. It is well-established by case law that, even where the employer can show a real need to reduce staffing numbers due to a downturn in business, a failure to look for alternative employment within the organisation can make a redundancy dismissal unfair. 

The Government plans to increase the qualifying period for employees to bring claims of unfair dismissal moved one step closer with the recent publication of the draft legislation on this issue.  Assuming that legislation does not alter massively in the next few months, employees who commence employment on or after 6 April 2012 will have to wait two years before they can bring claims for unfair dismissal.  Any employee who starts a job before 5 April 2012 will still be able to rely on the one year qualifying period.