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.

 

Central government:

• HM Treasury has announced that the Chancellor will deliver his Autumn Statement to Parliament on Wednesday 4 December 2013.
• The Immigration Bill 2013-14 has been published, setting out the government’s proposals to reform immigration law.
• The Defamation (Parliamentary Proceedings) (Amendment) Bill has received its first reading in Parliament.

Commercial:

• The ECJ has held that a consumer would be protected from unfair commercial practices of a public body (or bodies performing a public function) under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (BKK Mobil Oil Korperschaft des offentlichen Rechts v Zentrale zur Bekampfung unlauteren Wettbewerbs eV).

Education and social services:

• The Court of Appeal has confirmed that findings of fact can only be appealed if they form part of the determination, order or judgment of the court below (M (Children)).
• Ofsted has published a consultation seeking views on how it regulates and inspects social work providers who carry out statutory functions.

Employment and pensions:

• The Court of Appeal has held that an agreed temporary variation to employees’ normal working hours, which meant that the employees ceased to work on Fridays for several months, did not preclude the employees’ entitlement to a guarantee payment in respect of those Fridays (Abercrombie and others v Aga Rangemaster Ltd).
• The EAT has considered whether the contract of an employee who claimed disability discrimination could be frustrated (Warner v Armfield Retail & Leisure Ltd).
• The EAT has upheld a tribunal’s decision that an employer, in not paying for an employee with work-related stress and depression to have private psychiatric counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy, had breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 (Croft Vets Ltd and others v Butcher).
• The Pensions Ombudsman has held that when deciding if a member of the LGPS satisfies the criteria for receiving an ill-health early retirement pension from active status, an employing authority must go through a measured, independent decision-making process and not simply defer to the opinion of a certifying independent registered medical practitioner (Bell (PO-773)).
• HM Treasury has published Fair Deal for staff pensions: staff transfer from central government.

FOI and data protection:

• The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Destruction, Retention and Use of Biometric Data) (Transitional, Transitory and Saving Provisions) (Amendment) Order 2013 has been laid before Parliament.
• The FTT(IR) has held that:
  • information held by individual non-Fellow Governors of King’s College School was held on behalf of King’s College, Cambridge (King’s College, Cambridge v Information Commissioner and another); and
  • the section 44 FOIA exemption (publication prohibited under another statute) continued to apply despite the fact that the owner of the exempt information had shared it with a third party (Wendy Stephen v IC).
• The Information Commissioner and the Secretary of State for Justice have published an agreed Memoranda of Understanding on National Security Cases.
• The government plans to consult on the introduction of custodial penalties for breaches of section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998. 
• Guidance has been published on the appointment and role of public health consultants and directors of public health.

Housing:

• The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud 2013 (Commencement) (England) Order 2013 brought into force from 15 October 2013 the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013.
• The DCLG has published a consultation on proposals to strengthen statutory guidance on social housing allocations.

Human rights:

• The European Court of Human Rights has issued a statement criticising misrepresentation of its work by some of the British press.

Local government:

• Transparency International UK has published a report raising its concerns that recent changes to the regulation of local government could have the unintended consequence of increasing the risk of local government corruption.

Property and planning:

• A new industry-approved leasehold property enquiries form for residential properties has been announced.
• Defra and the Environment Agency have announced a scheme permitting riparian landowners to desilt their rivers in seven pilot areas without the need for permission.

Public procurement:

• The High Court has refused an application by a claimant for early disclosure prior to an application for an injunction in an action alleging breach of the public procurement rules (Covanta Energy Ltd v Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority).
• The ECJ has ruled on whether national law can impose restrictions on the right of an economic operator to rely on the capacity of third parties to meet selection criteria relating to its economic and financial standing or technical and/or professional ability (Swm Costruzioni 2 SpA, Mannocchi Luigino DI v Provincia di Fermo).
• The General Court annulled a decision by the European Medicines Agency to reject a tender submitted for the supply of external services in the area of software applications (European Dynamics Belgium SA and others v European Medicines Agency).
• The General Court has handed down its judgments in two actions against the rejection of a tender in a procurement process organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Informatics (Evropaïki Dynamiki – Proigmena Systimata Tilepikoinonion Pliroforikis kai Tilematikis AE v European Commission, and Evropaïki Dynamiki – Proigmena Systimata Tilepikoinonion Pliroforikis kai Tilematikis AE v European Commission).
• HM Treasury has published its response to the consultation on the terms of public sector equity participation in PF2 projects, together with standard forms for articles of association, loan note instrument and shareholders’ agreement for use by the public sector when procuring PF2 services.
• BIS has published a research paper which explains how competition affects the further education sector and provides practical guidance for further education providers on compliance with the competition rules.
• The OFT has launched a market study into the supply of information and communications technology goods and services to the public sector.
• Monitor announced that it has opened an investigation under the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No 2) Regulations 2013 into the commissioning of elective services in Blackpool and the surrounding area.