Latest News

  • FRU Chief Executive blogs for the Bar Council
    Fri, 09/14/2018 - 11:19

    FRU’s Chief Executive, David Abbott, was delighted to be asked to write a blog for the Bar Council’s newsletter ‘BarTalk’. The blog has now been published on the Bar Council website and provides an overview of our work and how it links to the Bar. https://www.barcouncil.org.uk/media-centre/bar-blog/contributing-writers/2018/september/guest-blog-all-fru-needs-is-love/

  • Autumn Training days 2018
    Fri, 09/07/2018 - 14:24

    We are pleased to announce our Autumn training dates are:

    Employment: Saturday 29th September 2018, 10am-4pm, City Law School
    Social Security: Sunday 14th October 2018, 10am to 4pm, City Law School

    Booking is now open. It will close on the Friday before the relevant training day at midday.

    There are also limited places available for training sessions taking place in Nottingham: these are for Nottingham Law School students who attend Nottingham Trent University and who are eligible to volunteer.  Students who are interested should contact staff at the University’s Legal Advice Centre for more information. Details about how and when to apply for places will be circulated by the Legal Advice Centre.

    We will be running a second round of training on:

    Employment: Saturday 27th October 2018, 10am – 4pm, BPP Law School (Waterloo).
    Booking will open on Monday 01st October.

    Social Security: Saturday 3rd November 2018, 10am to 4pm, BPP Law School (Waterloo).
    Booking will open on Monday 15th October.

    There is no restriction on where you study or work for the London based training days, provided you meet our eligibility criteria. But to volunteer you must be able to attend our Central London offices on a frequent basis, during office hours, when conducting case work.

    After this the next training sessions will take place in the Spring of 2019. Therefore, if you want to volunteer with us over the Autumn and Winter of 2018/19, you will need to attend one of the Autumn training sessions.

    We are providing more training sessions in the Autumn than in the past, because we hope this will make it easier for you to fit FRU work around your study and exam commitments.  We are monitoring the number of available cases in both social security and employment, and limit places on the training days accordingly. Our aim is to balance representing as many clients as possible with ensuring that our volunteers have the opportunity to take on cases. This does mean that places are limited, and we expect the training days to book out quickly.

  • Holly Stout swims the Serpentine to raise funds for FRU
    Wed, 08/15/2018 - 12:54

    Holly's Story: Last year I swam 1 mile in the Serpentine for FRU.  Having found the water surprisingly pleasant, and dodging the swans (who were apparently oblivious to the hundreds of swimmers) not too daunting, this year I have set myself the much more significant challenge of swimming 2 miles.  I am preparing for it by swimming as yet somewhat inadequate distances around far-flung islands of the British Isles: Orkney and the Isles of Scilly.  While 2 miles still seems like a very long way, my hope is that the temperature of the Serpentine will seem positively balmy in comparison.

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    https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/holly-stoutswim

     

  • Select Committee adopts FRU recommendation on tribunal applications
    Wed, 07/25/2018 - 14:17

    The Women and Equalities Select Committee has today published its inquiry report into sexual harassment in the workplace. FRU was invited to submit written and oral evidence to the Committee and the report cites our Principal Legal Officer Michael Reed’s oral evidence at several points. FRU is pleased that the Committee adopted one of our recommendations; that the three-month time limit for applications to the employment tribunal should be extended.

    FRU Chief Executive David Abbott said:

    “Sexual harassment in the workplace is a major concern. FRU was pleased to be invited to submit written and oral evidence to the Committee based on our extensive experience of representing victims of harassment.

    We are pleased that the committee was persuaded that the three-month time limit is too short and hope that the government will now implement the Committee’s recommendation. We were also pleased that the Committee recommended tribunals should be able to award punitive damages and there should be a presumption that tribunals will normally require employers to pay employees’ costs if the employer loses a discrimination case in which sexual harassment has been alleged. However FRU still believes that legal aid should be extended to cover legal advice and representation in these complex and demanding proceedings”.

    https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmwomeq/725/72502.htm

     

  • Congratulations to Ayesha!
    Tue, 07/24/2018 - 15:56

    FRU is pleased to congratulate our office administrator and receptionist Ayesha Taranum for graduating in English from Kings College London yesterday. Ayesha’s graduation was witnessed by her proud family members. Well done Ayesha from everyone at FRU.