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 Public Sector e-mail.

Civil litigation:

• The Supreme Court has ruled that the risk of violence to a deportee justified departing from the principle of open justice in the reporting of his deportation (A v British Broadcasting Corporation).
• The MoJ has published its fourth annual report on the implementation of proposals made by the Law Commission.
• The Civil Procedure (Amendment No 5) Rules 2014 and associated making document (implementing changes to Practice Directions 28 and 29) will come into force on 5 June 2014.
• HMCTS has announced that Thomson Reuters has been appointed to deliver a new electronic filing system for the jurisdictions of the High Court currently sitting in the Rolls Building.

Education and children’s services:

• The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal against an order returning a child to Malta and has summarised the case law dealing with hearing the child’s voice in proceedings under the 1980 Hague Convention (Re KP (A child)).

Employment and pensions:

• The Home Office has published a draft code of practice on preventing illegal working, including guidance on the factors that will be considered when  determining the amount of a civil penalty.
• The Pensions Ombudsman has made formal recommendations to Capita in relation to its overpayment recovery process and the training of staff, following maladministration failings (Determination in a complaint by Mrs Julie Barrow).

Environment:

• The EA has issued the seventh version of its Enforcement and Sanctions Offence Response Options.
• Defra has launched a call for evidence on how local authorities in England control leafleting to prevent litter.
• DECC has published a consultation on support for community energy projects under the feed-in tariffs (FITs) scheme.
• Defra and the Welsh Government have launched a joint consultation on draft ministerial guidance on river basin planning and environmental standards under the Water Framework Directive.

FOI and data protection:

• The Upper Tribunal has ruled that where legal advice subject to legal professional privilege is requested under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, the “adverse course of justice” exception will not automatically prevent disclosure of that advice (GW v Information Commissioner and others).
• The FTT(IR) has held that, under section 40(2) of FOIA, the Home Office was not obliged to disclose details of police officers acting as single points of contact under RIPA (Callus v Information Commissioner and another).
• The ICO has:
  • published a revised definition document for health regulators; and
  • asked councils to check whether software error resulting in electoral register disclosure has affected them.
• CESG has published a Risk Management Guide as part of its Cloud Security Guidance.

Health:

• The High Court has applied the test for “necessary competence” and made a declaration that a girl who had recently turned 13 years old had capacity to decide whether to terminate her 21-week pregnancy (A (A Child)).
• The CMA has:
  • announced that it has decided not to refer a proposed NHS Foundation Trust merger for a Phase 2 investigation under the Enterprise Act 2002; and
  • published for consultation draft guidance on the review of NHS mergers.
• Monitor has published a document setting out responses to and next steps following its consultation on proposed new arrangements for supporting NHS foundation trusts that are contemplating mergers.

Local government:

• The Local Authorities (Goods and Services) (Public Bodies) (England) Order 2014 has been laid before Parliament.
• The Welsh Government is consulting on draft regulations that make provision for community involvement in decisions by local authorities to dispose of land that consists or forms part of a playing field.

Property and planning:

• The Court of Appeal has allowed an appeal against the quashing of planning permission for a luxury hotel and golf course in an area of outstanding natural beauty (R (Cherkley Campaign Ltd) v Mole Valley District Council and another).
• The High Court has:
  • dismissed an application for judicial review of a local authority’s refusal to amend its definitive map where an inclosure commissioner had purported to create a public bridleway (R (Andrews) v Secretary of State for Environment Food & Rural Affairs and others); and
  • considered the effect on a claim for adverse possession of registered land of section 144 of LASPO, which makes it a criminal offence to trespass by “living” in a residential building (Best v Chief Land Registrar and another).
• The Central London County Court has ruled that a use restriction in a lease breaches the Chapter I prohibition of the Competition Act 1998 and does not meet the criteria for exemption under Article 9(1) of the Competition Act (Martin Retail Group Limited v Crawley Borough Council).

Public procurement and state aid:

• The ECJ has ruled:
  • that the award of a contract between separate publicly-owned entities does not fall within the in-house exception (Datenlotsen Informationssysteme GmbH v Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg); and
  • on the time limits for bringing an action under the Utilities Remedies Directive (Idrodinamica Spurgo Velox srl v Acquedotto Pugliese SpA).
• The European Commission has:
  • found support to be granted by Dublin local authorities for a Waste-to-Energy project to be in line with state aid rules; and
  • published a new handbook that provides guidance on the application of the state aid rules to broadband deployment.

Regulation and enforcement:

• Section 106 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 has come into force, which extends the offence of owning or being in charge of a dangerous dog in a public place to cover private property.