Underfunding meaning

The County Court system is 'dysfunctional' and has 'failed' adequately to deliver civil justice across England and Wales, was concluded in a report by the House of Commons Justice Committee dated 21 July 2025. Andy Slaughter, who chairs the cross-party committee, stated it is imperative that improving the County Court becomes a key priority for the Ministry of Justice, given the unacceptable delays affecting almost all categories of claims. The Labour Party MP said the inefficiencies and holdups stem from years of underfunding. 'Justice delayed is justice denied', Slaughter observed. The committee urged that a review of the County Court system should commence by spring 2026, describing its condition as dire and demanding urgent attention. It concluded the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has added to the delays. He warned that delays are now increasing across most claim types...

Key provisions of Part III of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) and a Nature Restoration Levy Part III proposes Environmental Delivery Plans and a Nature Restoration Levy to accelerate development by aggregating environmental mitigation. Rather than meeting bespoke ecological obligations for each project, developers would pay into a collective fund. Natural England would then deliver conservation actions using those monies. This marks a significant shift from the existing framework, which requires stringent case-by-case evaluations, consents tied to individual sites, and specific licensing for protected species. Approving EDPs—the ‘Overall Improvement’ test EDPs may relate to any defined land area and can address some or all environmental features within that boundary. To bring an EDP into force, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government must decide it satisfies an ‘overall improvement’ test—namely, that the conservation measures proposed are likely to outweigh the negative environmental effects of development occurring in the EDP area. Setting the Nature Restoration Levy Each EDP must...

Trials are now being timetabled for 2028. The backlog in the magistrates' courts, the entry point for all criminal matters, topped 300,000 last year. Chronic underfunding throughout the justice system causes and deepens the delays. The upshot is the worst of outcomes: cases falling apart, defendants and complainants enduring years before a hearing, and miscarriages of justice. Paradoxically, these strains may prompt better judgement in certain enforcement actions. Even diligent organisations can suffer incidents. Pursuing a prosecution is often out of proportion where an organisation has taken all reasonable steps to protect safety, notwithstanding a merely technical infringement. Legal context When the Robens report on workplace health and safety was finalised in 1972, a clear consensus emerged: criminal proceedings are not suited to most offences under health and safety law, and ought to be kept for breaches that are flagrant, wilful or reckless. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA 1974) followed, shifting from prescriptive rules to broad duties, and establishing the Health and Safety Executive...

This Practice Note applies solely to occupational pension schemes and is intended for trustees; accordingly, it does not cover compensation sharing orders for schemes within the Pension Protection Fund. From 5 December 2005, following the Civil Partnership Act 2004, pension attachment and pension sharing orders were broadened to include the dissolution of civil partnerships for same-sex couples. Cohabiting partners are outside the scope of both orders, as cohabitation does not confer a right to obtain either. Throughout this Practice Note, any reference to an ex-spouse should therefore be read as including an ex-civil partner... Court orders which trustees may have to implement A married member’s pension entitlement may constitute the sole, or principal, asset built up during the marriage. When the marriage breaks down, the court may, as a result, redistribute between the parties the benefits arising from pension resources in situations where offsetting—by which the value of the pension resources is set against the value of other assets held between the parties—is not possible or not desirable...

FORTHCOMING CHANGE: Section 10 of the Finance Act 2022 will raise the normal minimum pension age (NMPA) from 55 to 57 on 6 April 2028, excluding members of the firefighters, police and armed forces public service pension schemes. The Finance Act 2022 also grants members of registered pension schemes a right to access benefits before age 57 if, on or before 4 November 2021, they satisfied one of the following: they already held an unqualified right to take benefits; or they were in the course of a substantive transfer to a scheme that, on or before 4 November 2021, offered an unqualified right to a protected pension age below 57. To rely on this new protection from 2028, the scheme’s rules must have contained, as at 11 February 2021, an unqualified right to take entitlement to scheme benefits before age 57. For further information, see Practice Note: Increasing the normal minimum pension age (NMPA) to 57—pensions impact. THIS PRACTICE...