PLC Public Sector reports:
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Education: education lawyers should be aware that the Department for Education has:
- Published updated versions of various advice and guidance on school behaviour.
- Published statutory guidance on the roles and responsibilities of the Director of Children’s Services and the Lead Member for Children’s Services. The guidance is aimed at local authorities with responsibility for education and children’s social services.
Freedom of information: anyone advising public authorities on their duties to disclose information following a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) will be interested in two recent decisions:
- In Department of Health v Information Commissioner and another, the tribunal held that one risk register relating to the Health and Social Care Bill must be disclosed, while another should not, even though both registers fell within the exemption for the formulation of government policy in section 35 of FOIA. The decision provides useful guidance as to how the tribunal will approach the question of whether the public interest lies in maintaining an exemption or disclosing information,
- In Independent Police Complaints Commission v Information Commissioner, the tribunal took a broad view of the exemptions in sections 12 (costs limit) and 14 (vexatious requests) of FOIA. The tribunal held that there only needs to be a very loose connection between requests to allow them to be aggregated for the purposes of section 12, and that the costs of responding to a request can lead to the request being vexatious under section 14. Public authorities should consider whether they can take advantage of the views taken by the tribunal in dealing with requests for information that they consider are abusing the right to information established in FOIA.
Health: those responsible for health emergency preparedness should note that the Department of Health has published a paper described the changes that will be made to health emergency preparedness, resilience and response procedures as a result of changes made by the Health and Social Care Act 2012.
Local government: local authorities should be aware that:
- A fifth commencement order for the Localism Act 2011 has been published, bringing into force a number of provisions of the Act into force including those relating to the general power of competence, local authority governance and the London housing strategy.
- Three sets of regulations and two Orders have been made all dealing with changes to local authority governance brought about by the Localism Act 2012. The relevant provisions of the Act make a number of changes to the Local Government Act 2000.
- A fraud strategy for local government has been published in order to assist local authorities in dealing with a range of frauds, such as council tax fraud and tenancy fraud.
- The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has issued a further report criticising Torbay Council for failing to pay the full amount of compensation that was recommended in the LGO’s original report. Torbay offered the complainant (who was made bankrupt by Torbay without any due regard being had to his mental health) £1,000 in compensation, however the LGO had recommended that it repay all of his costs associated with being made bankrupt totalling £25,000.
- The London Local Authorities Act 2012 has received Royal Assent. The Act will give a variety of new powers to London boroughs.
Consultations: this week a consultation has been published on reform of the alternative provision sector.