In brief: Appeal by the Official Solicitor acting for the vulnerable adult against a proportionate costs order made against a newspaper where the President held that the Court of Protection Rules applied rather than the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 (where the general rule is that the unsuccessful party will be ordered to pay the costs of the successful party). Appeal dismissed.

Read the judgment on Bailii - our full case summary and analysis will follow in our Cases section of the site.

In brief: an application regarding the effectiveness of some provisions contained in a Lasting Power of Attorney ('LPA') for property and financial affairs.

As Senior Judge Lush comments while this sort of case would not normally be published he has done so on this occasion as 

"its publication may be of interest to professionals who specialise in this area of the law and draft LPAs on a regular basis, and also to people who are considering making an LPA themselves, and for this reason I shall permit its publication"

Read the judgment on Bailii - our full case summary and analysis will follow in our Cases section of the site.

113,600 DoLS applications were made last year compared with 10,900 in the previous  year according to new figures just published by the Health & Social Care Information Centre.

The figures cover 116 councils who submitted returns for all 4 quarters last year and show the effect of the Supreme Court judgment in P v Cheshire. The fact that 54% of the applications are pending decision also shows the strain on resources that this increased workload is creating.

The full report can be downloaded from the HSCIC website here.