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.
Central government:
- The ECJ has held that EU states were entitled to restrict access to particular benefits to economically inactive migrants (Dano and Another v Jobcentre Leipzig).
Civil litigation:
- The High Court has considered a number of complaints made regarding a defendant’s disclosure exercise, and has highlighted the need to explain the basis for the redaction of disclosed documents (Decura IM Investments LLP v UBS AG, London Branch).
Commercial:
- The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill 2014-15 has completed the Commons committee stage and been republished.
Education and children’s services:
- The High Court has held that a request for assistance made between departments in a local authority does not fall within section 27 of the Children Act 1989 (R (C1 and C2) v London Borough of Hackney).
- The House of Lords has proposed amendments to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill 2014-2015. One amendment proposed changing the definition of “arrested juvenile” in section 37(15) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 from children and young people aged 12 to 16, to anyone under 18 years old.
- The DfE has published a non-statutory advice note on cyberbullying for headteachers and school staff.
Employment and pensions:
- The ECJ has held that a Spanish law imposing a maximum recruitment age of 30 for local police officers was contrary to the age provisions of the Equal Treatment Framework Directive (Perez v Ayuntamiento de Oviedo).
- The EAT has held that the time limit to bring a claim in respect of sexual harassment that continued over a period that spanned a TUPE transfer did not start to run from the date of that transfer, but from the end of the period of the conduct complained of (Vernon v Azure Support Services Ltd and others).
- The ET has held that time spent by trade union representatives attending union meetings was not “working time” within the meaning of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (Edwards and another v Encirc Ltd).
- The government has published its response to a consultation on proposals to prohibit employment agencies and employment businesses from advertising vacancies for work in Great Britain exclusively in other EEA countries.
Environment:
- The DECC has published the government’s response to its May 2014 consultation on feed-in tariffs support for community energy projects.
- The Environment Agency has:
- launched Isitwaste?, an online questionnaire for identifying end-of-waste;
- launched a consultation on technical guidance WM3 for the classification and assessment of waste; and
- updated its regulatory position statement on the registration of small domestic sewage discharges (septic tanks and small package treatment plants) in England.
Equality Act 2010:
- The High Court has ruled that the Secretary of State for Health breached the public sector equality duty in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 when making the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations (R (Cushnie) v Secretary of State for Health).
Housing:
- The Supreme Court has held that local housing authorities are not required to apply for possession orders in cases involving temporary accommodation pending a homelessness review decision (R (ZH and CN) v London Borough of Newham and London Borough of Lewisham).
Local government:
- The DH has published the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework 2015-2016.
- The House of Commons Library has published a standard note on the powers of local authorities to hold polls and referendums.
- The DCLG has published a consultation on proposed amendments to the Local Authorities (Capital Finance and Accounting) (England) Regulations 2003 to enable local housing authorities to calculate the proportion of Right to Buy receipts they should pay to the Treasury.
Public procurement:
- The High Court has issued a ruling on an application to strike out parts of the amended particulars of claim in an action alleging breach of the public procurement rules (NATS (Services) Ltd v Gatwick Airport Ltd).
Regulation and enforcement:
- The Sentencing Council has published a consultation draft of new sentencing guidelines for health and safety, corporate manslaughter, food safety and hygiene offences.