Home

In Part 1, What Happens If a UK University Fails?, Richard Obank explored why mounting financial pressures mean university failure can no longer be dismissed as a theoretical risk. In Part 2, University Insolvency: Why Existing Restructuring Tools Are Not Enough, he examined the gaps in the current legal framework and considered whether the further education sector offers a potential model for reform. The final instalment considers the case for and against a special administration regime for higher education institutions. It then looks beyond conventional insolvency law to the graduated intervention model used in the NHS and the supplier-of-last-resort mechanism used in the energy sector, before setting out the case for an early-warning framework, regulatory intervention and a credible last-resort process.

The fire and rehire provisions in the Employment Rights Act have had less focus than some of the more headline grabbing changes. However, they do represent a big change for employers. Getting even less attention, tucked alongside the key provisions on varying terms is a further reform, a provision that creates a separate category of automatically unfair dismissal where an employer dismisses an employee in order to have their work done by a non-employee. It is aimed at preventing employers from dressing up workforce replacement as redundancy. But is the ambit of this provision wider than intended?