Practical Law

Make sure that you have not missed a key development in your area of the law by reading our In brief review of the latest Practical Law Local Government email.

Adult social services:

• The Court of Appeal has upheld the Court of Protection’s decision that private care arrangements for an individual in their own home constitute a deprivation of liberty (Secretary of State for Justice v Staffordshire County Council and others).

Central government:

• The House of Commons Exiting the European Union Committee has published its first report of the parliamentary session 2016-17 on the process for exiting the European Union and the government’s negotiating objectives.
• The Prime Minister has delivered a speech on the UK government’s negotiating objectives for exiting the EU.
• The House of Commons Library has published briefing papers on:
  • Brexit and directly applicable EU law;
  • Brexit and how the Article 50 process will work; and
  • electoral fraud since 2010.

Civil litigation:

• The High Court has considered whether, when assessing a bill of costs, additional liabilities were to be excluded for the purpose of assessing proportionality (King v Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust).
• The County Court has struck out a claim and granted summary judgment on the grounds that the wrong court fee was paid when the claim was issued (Stiff v Aurelia Ltd).

Education:

• The Coasting Schools (England) Regulations 2017 have been made and came into force on 11 January 2017. The regulations define “coasting schools” for the purposes of section 60B of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and section 2B of the Academies Act 2010.
• The House of Commons Library has published an updated briefing paper on grammar schools in England, outlining recent developments in the government’s policy on grammar schools.

Employment and pensions:

• The EAT has upheld a tribunal’s decision that it had jurisdiction to hear a disability discrimination claim because the claim was not barred by the terms of the COT3 under which a previous claim had been settled (Department for Work and Pensions v Brindley).
• The government has published non-statutory guidance on the regulations governing industrial action in important public services.
• The Law Society has responded to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s inquiry into the future world of work.
• The High Court has held that a challenge to a warning notice issued by the Pensions Regulator should be undertaken through statutory procedure and not judicial review (R (Grace Bay II Holdings Sarl and others) v The Pensions Regulator and others).

FOI and data protection:

• The FTT(IR) has held that a council could not rely on the exemption in section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (personal information) and was required to disclose a draft investigation report concerning a councillor’s alleged breach of its code of conduct (Janet Dedman v Information Commissioner).
• The ICO has published a decision notice finding that NHS Improvement could rely on section 31(1)(g) (prejudice to the exercise of a public authority’s functions) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in order to withhold requested information relating to a tender for the provision of primary medical care services (ICO decision notice FS50643575).

Housing:

• The High Court has held that it is not open to a local authority that has accepted that conditions for a local connection referral under section 198 of the Housing Act 1996 were met, to rely upon a previous discharge of its housing duty (R (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea) v London Borough of Ealing).

Local government law:

• The House of Commons Library has published a briefing paper providing background information on the draft Public Service Ombudsman Bill 2016-17.

Property and planning:

• The Compulsory Purchase of Land (Prescribed Forms) (Ministers) (Amendments) Regulations 2017 have been made and will come into force on 3 February 2017.
• The Housing and Planning Act 2016 (Compulsory Purchase) (Corresponding Amendments) Regulations 2017 have been made and will come into force on 2 February 2017.
• The Compulsory Purchase of Land (Vesting Declarations) (England) Regulations 2017 have been made and will come into force on 3 February 2017.

Public procurement:

• The General Court has held that a bidder did not prove the existence of a particularly serious prima facie case regarding a procurement award procedure for high voltage electricity work that had been awarded to a rival consortium (Soletec SA, Mannelli & Associates, Paul Wagner and son SA and Socom SA v European Parliament).
• Details have been published in the Official Journal of a request by a Lithuanian court for a preliminary ruling by the ECJ on issues relating to the conduct of a public procurement procedure, including the application of Article 101 of the TFEU (Šiaulių regiono atliekų tvarkymo centras v ‘Specializuotas transportas’ UAB).
• The Department of Health has published updated terms and conditions for NHS bodies procuring goods and services.

Regulation and enforcement:

• The Welsh Government has published a consultation on the proposals for the introduction of Fixed Penalty Notices for small scale fly-tipping in Wales. The consultation closes on 6 April 2017.