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 High Court has considered an application by defendants to vacate a trial date (Scriven v Scriven and others).

Education and children’s services:

• The Education (Information About Individual Pupils) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2013 have come into force.
• The DfE has published:
  • new advice, a handbook and a consultation on school governance; and
  • an updated version of its PFI academy principal agreement.
• The Welsh Government has published a consultation on making improvements to the Learner Travel Operational Guidance and the All-Wales Travel Behaviour Code. 

Employment and pensions:

• The Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 have been laid before Parliament and come into force on 31 January 2014, subject to saving and transitional provisions.
• The DWP has published the outcome of its triennial review on the future of the Pensions Regulator, the Pensions Ombudsman, the Pension Protection Fund Ombudsman and the Pensions Advisory Service.

Environment:

• The High Court has refused an application for judicial review of the decision to grant a development consent order to Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (R (An Taisce (The National Trust for Ireland)) v The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change).
• A new version of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme guidance manual has been published.
• The DECC has published a further response to its consultation on the need to clarify the definition of “debtor” under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, in the context of a regulated Green Deal plan.

FOI and data protection:

• Advocate General Sharpston gave her opinion that legal analysis of an individual’s entitlement to lawful residency, contained in internal administrative documents, is not personal data (YS v Minister voor Immigratie, Integratie en Asiel and Minister voor Immigratie, Integratie en Asiel v M and S).
• The First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) has ruled that:
  • Eastleigh Borough Council was entitled to rely on the “internal communications” exception in regulation 12(4)(e) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 in relation to a request for disclosure of papers relating to a housing development decision (Eastleigh Borough Council v Information Commissioner); and
  • the disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) of the existence of a complaint of professional misconduct against an individual where there was no finding of wrongdoing was not always unfair and therefore a breach of the data protection principles (Foster v Information Commissioner).
• The ICO has updated its guidance for public authorities on how to apply the public audit exemption in section 33 of FOIA and has issued two new sector definition documents.

Health:

• The Department of Health has published factsheet 19 on the integration of health and social care funding under the Care Bill 2013-14.

Housing:

• The DCLG has announced changes to the discounts available for social housing tenants who exercise their right to buy.

Human rights:

• The Court of Appeal has held that the High Court was correct to find that a Chief Constable’s decision to disclose unfounded allegations in a CRB check was flawed although it had erred in its assessment of proportionality (R (A) v Chief Constable of Kent Constabulary).

Local government:

• The draft Localism Act 2011 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2014 has been published, which reflects changes to council tax calculations.

Mental capacity:

•  The Court of Protection has:
  • confirmed that when assessing the best interests of a person lacking capacity (P), the court may only look at the options that were or would have been available to P if he had full capacity (ACCG and another v MN and others); and
  • reviewed the applicable authorities where a court makes a declaration of non-marriage, following its decision that a young woman with learning difficulties did not have capacity to enter into a marriage (A Local Authority v SY).

Property and planning:

• The Mobile Homes (Wales) Act 2013 (Commencement, Transitional and Saving Provisions) Order 2014 has been made.
• The Mobile Homes (Site Rules) (England) Regulations 2014 have been made.
• The Inner House of the Scottish Court of Session has held that liquidators of Scottish companies have no power of disclaimer (Re The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and others).
• The DCLG has published instructions on how to obtain government approval for redress schemes covering letting and property management agents in the private rented sector.
• The Environment Agency has launched its charged-for pre-application planning advice service.

Public procurement:

• The European Parliament has:
  • adopted, on first reading, the two new public procurement directives to replace Directive 2004/17 (Utilities Directive) and Directive 2004/18 (Public Sector Directive) and a separate proposed directive on the award of concession contracts; and
  • voted to support a proposal for a regulation on the access of third-country goods and services to the EU’s internal market in public procurement and procedures supporting negotiations on access of EU goods and services to the public procurement markets of third countries.

Regulation and enforcement:

•  The Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014 have been made, which aim to reform the law on bailiff action.