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:
- The Draft Wales Bill has been laid before Parliament.
- The government has published its response to the Commons Select Committee report on supporting creative economy.
Civil litigation:
- The Court of Appeal has:
- partly allowed an appeal on the grounds that the trial judge’s decision was unfair due to a procedural irregularity, and given guidance on the appropriate judicial approach if the cross-examination of experts is to be dispensed with (Hatton and another v Connew and another).
- considered the jurisdictional threshold for pre-action disclosure (Smith v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change).
- Briggs LJ has published his final report on the modernisation of the Chancery Division.
- The Ministry of Justice has published its seventh statement of new regulation.
- The Law Commission has published its report recommending changes to the law on contempt of court by publication.
Commercial:
- The Supreme Court has held that a hotel had discriminated against civil partners on the grounds of sexual orientation by refusing to offer them a double room (Bull v Hall).
Education and children’s services:
- The School and Early Years Finance (England) Regulations 2013 have been made and will come into force on 1 January 2014.
- Two sets of regulations have been made bringing into force and providing further detail on the requirement for Welsh local authorities to prepare a Welsh in education strategic plan.
- The DfE has published revised statutory guidance for newly-qualified teachers in England.
- The Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council has adopted conclusions on enhancing the social inclusion of young people not in employment, education or training.
- The Court of Appeal has set aside a placement for adoption orders on the basis that the judge did not have jurisdiction to impose conditions in relation to the placement order (Re A).
Employment and pensions:
- The Court of Appeal has:
- dismissed an appeal by a Christian worker who claimed to have suffered indirect discrimination by being required to work on Sundays (Mba v Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Merton); and
- held that an employer should not have blindly adopt an occupational health opinion finding that an employee was not disabled and should instead have applied its own mind to the test for determining disability under the discrimination legislation (Gallop v Newport City Council).
- The Inner House of the Court of Session has reviewed the case law on ill-health dismissals (BS v Dundee City Council).
- The EAT has upheld a tribunal decision holding that the dismissal of a school caretaker following unproven allegations of historical sexual abuse was unfair (Z v A; A v Z).
- BIS has published its statement of new regulation which includes the announcement that the new TUPE regulations will come into force on 31 January 2014.
- The MoJ has published its first set of official tribunal statistics since the introduction of employment tribunal fees in July 2013.
- The Court of Appeal (Northern Ireland) has allowed an appeal against the judicial review of a decision not to pay a survivor’s pension to a respondent following the death of her co-habiting partner under the LGPS (Brewster v Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee).
- The Pensions Ombudsman has held that it was maladministration for an employer participating in the Teachers’ Pension Scheme to not inform an applicant for enhanced ill-health early retirement of the benefits of an impending change in the law to the test for awarding these benefits (Dent (PO-403)).
- The Pensions Regulator has published a draft code for consultation on the governance and administration of public service pension schemes.
- The DWP has published a consultation on draft regulations setting out new record-keeping and reporting requirements for public sector pension schemes.
Environment:
- The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations 2013 have been made and will come into force on 1 January 2014.
- The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (Allocation of Allowances for Payment) Regulations 2013 have been made and will come into force on 1 February 2014.
- The Supreme Court has applied the “prohibitively expensive” test for costs orders set out in the Aarhus Convention (R (Edwards and another) v Environment Agency and others).
- The government has published:
- a Waste Prevention Programme for England;
- its response to its consultation on amendments to the Environmental Permitting regime; and
- its response to the European Commission consultation on waste targets.
FOI and data protection:
- The ECJ has ruled that fees for public authority subject access requests are lawful (In Proceedings brought by X).
- The ICO has published a checklist for local authorities on information sharing and data protection.
- The European Parliament has adopted a resolution on cloud computing.
- The EU Justice and Home Affairs Council has been described as having moved “backwards” in relation to data protection reform by becoming involved in further legal discussion rather than progressive political discussion on the proposals.
Housing:
- The Court of Appeal has:
- ruled that a council had had regard to the issue of affordability when considering whether it was reasonable for applicant to continue occupying his property or by leaving it had made himself intentionally homeless (Birmingham City Council v Balog); and
- resolved previous uncertainty over which sort of section 21 notice (under the Housing Act 1988) should be served where a fixed term assured shorthold tenancy has expired and the tenant remains in occupation on a statutory periodic tenancy (Spencer v Taylor).
- The High Court has rejected a challenge to a decision by a local authority to contract out its homelessness functions to an ALMO under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 (Tachie and others v Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council).
- A consultation has been published on the Holiday Caravan Sites (Wales) Bill.
Local government:
- The government has published its response to its consultation on improving local government transparency and a draft code of practice.
- The government has announced that it will introduce statutory instruments allowing same sex marriages to take place from 29 March 2014.
Property and planning:
- The draft Community Infrastructure Structure Levy (Amendment) Regulations 2014 have been published.
- The Court of Appeal has considered the approach to be adopted for proposed housing development on green belt land where a local plan has not been produced in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework (City and District Council of St Albans v R(Hunston Properties Limited) and another).
- A consultation has been published on the heritage elements of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.
- The Environment Agency has published improved flood maps.
- The government has published its response to its consultation on trigger and terminating events for removing the right to apply to register land as a town or village green.
Public procurement:
- New public procurement thresholds have been published, which will apply from January 2014.
- The ECJ has ruled:
- that the old Utilities Contract Directive (93/38), which had not been transposed into Portuguese national law, had direct effect on entities which were responsible for providing a public service, under control of the state, which had been granted special powers to carry out that public service; and
- on the legality of fees applicable to organisations responsible for providing certificates of financial and technical competence to companies wishing to take part in procurement procedures.
- The General Court has annulled a European Commission procurement decision because of a lack of reasoning setting out why the decision has been made.
Regulation and enforcement: