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 email.

Civil litigation:

• The High Court has considered the costs budgets submitted by two parties to libel proceedings and highlighted some useful practical points on costs budgeting (Stocker v Stocker).
• The Administrative Court has considered the jurisdiction, under section 42(3) of the Senior Courts Act 1981, to grant a party subject to a civil restraint order leave to institute or continue (or make an application in) civil proceedings (HM Attorney General v Edwards).
• The TCC has held that a judge has jurisdiction to undertake a summary assessment of costs even where he did not make the costs order in question (Transformers and Rectifiers Limited v Needs Limited).

Commercial:

• The Legal Writings (Counterparts and Delivery) (Scotland) Act 2015 (Commencement) Order 2015 has been made and will come into force on 1 July 2015.
• The High Court has considered whether a legal or an equitable assignment of rights was created by a security document (Ardila Investments NV v ENRC NV and another).

Employment and pensions:

• The EAT has:
  • upheld a tribunal’s decision that an employee was not under an express or implied duty to disclose to his employer allegations of sexual misconduct made against him whilst working elsewhere (The Basildon Academies v Amadi); and
  • overturned a tribunal’s decision to make a wasted costs order against a firm of solicitors (Hafiz & Haque Solicitors v Mullick and Paul UK Ltd).
• Employment tribunals have:
  • held that the summary dismissal of a healthcare assistant for coming to work smelling of alcohol was unfair (McElroy v Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust); and
  • held that a Christian nursery employee was directly and indirectly discriminated against by her employer on the grounds of her religion or belief when it dismissed her for expressing negative views about a colleague’s homosexuality (Mbuyi v Newpark Childcare (Shepherds Bush) Ltd).
• The government has announced the start of a review of employment tribunal fees in accordance with its commitment to do so when fees were introduced in July 2013. The Ministry of Justice has also published the statistics for tribunals for the period January to March 2015.
• The Department of Health has issued a short guide to the process that should be followed to ensure that appropriate bulk transfer arrangements are in place where an NHS organisation is re-tendering for the provision of services that will involve a transfer of staff back into the NHS pension scheme in accordance with Fair Deal 2013.

Environment:

• The Hazardous Waste (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2015 have been made and will come into force on 1 July 2015. They amend a range of environmental legislation to implement the alignment of the Waste Framework Directive 2008 and Decision 2000/532/EC on the List of Wastes with the EU CLP Regulation 2008.
• The Landfill Tax (Qualifying Fines) (No 2) Order 2015 has been made and came into force (retrospectively) on 1 April 2015.
• The European Commission has published draft guidance on the definition and classification of hazardous waste. The guidance explains how hazardous waste should be classified under the Waste Framework Directive 2008 and Decision 2000/532/EC on the EU List of Wastes.

FOI and data protection:

• The Scottish Government has published a consultation on its proposals to extend coverage of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 to providers of secure accommodation for children, grant-aided schools and independent special schools, and contractors who run privately-managed prisons.
• David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has published his report, A Question of Trust, on the operation and regulation of investigatory powers in the UK.

Housing:

• The House of Commons Library has published two briefing papers: one on the government’s proposals to extend the right to buy in England to housing association tenants, and another comparing the right to buy in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Local government:

• The NAO has published a report on how well the government has applied the new burdens doctrine, which states that the government would ensure that new requirements that increased local authorities’ spending did not lead to excessive council tax increases.

Property and planning:

• The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (Wales) (Amendment) Order 2015 has been made and will come into force in Wales on 22 June 2015.
• The Supreme Court has considered whether a service charge clause in leases of holiday chalets should be interpreted as obliging the tenants to pay a fixed sum with a fixed annual increase (Arnold v Britton and others).
• The High Court has considered the extent to which it was possible to entertain an appeal against a planning enforcement notice, on the basis that the steps the notice contained exceeded what was necessary to remedy any injury to amenity caused by the planning breach, when planning permission was not sought for the breach of planning control (Miaris v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and another).
• The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has held that in a claim for a new lease under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (LRHUDA 1993), the service charge provisions of the existing lease should be modified under section 57(6) of LRHUDA 1993 because the aggregate of the service charge contributions from all the tenants exceeded 100% of expenditure (Rossman v The Crown Estate Commissioners).
• Wildlife and Countryside Link has published guidance on when brownfield land should be considered to be of “high environmental value”.

Public procurement:

• The Advocate General has handed down an opinion on a preliminary reference ruling from a Basque court regarding a location requirement in a call for tenders for public health services (Grupo Hospitalario Quirón SA v Departamento de Sanidad del Gobierno Vasco et Instituto de Religiosas Siervas de Jesús de la Caridad).

Social services:

• The High Court has extended a non-molestation injunction during wardship proceedings against a father beyond a child’s 18th birthday (Re SO).
• The Court of Protection has clarified its jurisdiction to recognise and enforce foreign protective measures under Schedule 3 to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (Health Service Executive of Ireland v PA and others).
• The NAO has published a report on the implementation of the provisions of the Care Act 2014 that came into force on 1 April 2015 and the funding for those changes.