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HIPS                                                    February 2008

Home Information Packs (HIPs) are helping to reduce the cost of buying and selling houses by reducing the cost of property searches, according to the Government.

Anyone selling a home in England and Wales must now provide potential buyers with a pack containing the results of property searches and other specified documents such as energy performance certificates.

Junior Housing Minister Iain Wright said: “Home Information Packs are already beginning to bring benefits to consumers with average property search costs starting to fall because of the new competition created by HIPs - 85 local authorities have already reduced their charges by £30 on average.”

The Department for Communities and Local Government now wants to improve the system further by telling local councils they should provide access to their data within one working day to private search companies. They will then be able to recoup their costs by setting a fair charge for improving access.

Ministers hope the move will help deliver faster and cheaper property searches and help speed up the process of buying and selling houses.

Mr Wright said: "Consumers will be able to get important property information earlier in the home buying process and see the costs coming down as a result."

Employment rights                                 February 2008

The limits on awards that can be made by tribunals in employment rights cases rose on 1st February in line with the annual index linked formula.

The new limits affect statutory redundancy payments, compensatory awards for unfair dismissal, the payment guarantee when employees are not provided with work and the minimum award for unfair dismissal in health and safety cases and certain other cases.

The limit on the amount of compensation that can be awarded for unfair dismissal rises from £60,600 to £63,000. The maximum nominal “week’s pay” used when calculating awards for redundancy payments or compensation for unfair dismissal rises from £310 to £330.

The limits in other categories rise by similar proportionate amounts.
Injured prison officer entitled to claim damages

A prison officer who had to give up his job after being attacked by an inmate has won the right to claim damages against the Ministry of Justice.

The incident happened after the prison officer had been involved in an exercise with other members of his team to open a cell which had been closed and barricaded by an inmate.

The operation was successful and the prison officer and a colleague then escorted the inmate to the segregation unit. The officers were not given the prisoner’s history sheet outlining his violent past.

The next day the officer was attacked without warning when he entered the prisoner’s cell. He was hit in the eye and had to give up his career in the service because of his injury. The officer later discovered that the inmate had previously been involved in 20 violent incidents including 14 involving prison staff.

The officer claimed that he would have taken extra precautions if he had been alerted to the inmate’s record and the attack could have been avoided. However, the Ministry of Justice said the officer knew about the inmate’s violent nature from the fact that he had barricaded the cell the previous day.

The High Court found that the Ministry was negligent in not alerting him to the prisoner’s violent past. It was the Ministry’s duty to keep the officer reasonably safe and so it should have provided him with information about the inmate’s past.