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  Court of Appeal has held that a judge did not err in refusing to correct his judgment that had been handed down in 2011, in a decision that serves as a reminder of the narrow application of the slip rule in CPR 40.12 (Re A (a Child)).
• The County Court has held that a costs budget not required in cases issued before 1 April 2013 in the absence of a specific order court considered whether the parties had been required to file a costs budget estimate under CPR 3.12(1) (Quistis Consulting Ltd v TDP Direct Marketing Ltd).
• HM Courts and Tribunals Service will introduce a new fee payment service from 7 July 2014, enabling court fees to be paid electronically.
• The Law Society has published a revised model conditional fee agreement (CFA) and interim advice for use in personal injury and clinical negligence claims.
• The Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution has updated all of its model mediation rules and documents.
• Details of the court closure dates and opening hours of the registries of the Supreme Court and Judicial Committee of the Privy Council during Summer 2014 have been announced.

Commercial:

• The High Court has struck out tort claims for pure economic loss (Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd v Condek Holdings Ltd and others).

Education and children’s services:

• The Teachers’ Disciplinary (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2014 have been laid before Parliament.
• The Welsh Government has made the Education (Wales) Act 2014 (Commencement No 1) Order 2014.

Employment and pensions:

• The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill 2014-15 has been published and had its first reading in the House of Commons.
• The Paternity and Adoption Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2014 have been published.
• The draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) (No 2) Regulations 2014 have been laid before Parliament.
• The ECJ has considered whether a German federal law that set the pay of civil servants by reference to age at the time of recruitment breached the Equal Treatment Directive (Specht and others v Land Berlin and other cases).
• The High Court has prevented a police force from providing a reference disclosing disciplinary allegations (AB v A Chief Constable).
• The EAT has:
  • upheld an employment tribunal’s finding that a dismissal for redundancy had been unfair and race discriminatory, despite the tribunal having adopted a substitution mindset with regard to the employer’s choice of pool (Family Mosaic Housing Association v Badmos); and
  • held that the fact that an employee is on sick leave is relevant when determining whether a delay in resigning precluded a constructive dismissal (Chindove v William Morrisons Supermarket plc).
• Acas has published a new code of practice and guide on the right to request flexible working, which has been extended to all employees with at least 26 weeks’ continuous service, effective from 30 June 2014.
• The government has issued its response to the call for evidence on whistleblowing.
• HM Treasury and the DWP have published a joint Review of Survivor Benefits in Occupational Pension Schemes, which states that the government will consider the findings of its review of survivor benefits “very carefully” before making a decision on whether the law should be changed.
• The DWP has published its response to the consultation on workplace pensions and the Pension Schemes Bill 2014 has been introduced in the House of Commons.
• HM Treasury has published a consultation on the recovery of public sector exit payments.

Environment:

• A Directive amending the threshold value provisions under the Groundwater Directive 2006 has been published in the Official Journal.
• The High Court has ruled on a judicial review of the issue of a police search warrant to search the business premises and home of a waste operator (Sweeney v Westminster Magistrates Court and another).

FOI and data protection:

• The ICO has published two pieces of revised guidance on charges for environmental information.

Health:

• The DH has published:
  • guidance to assist local authorities in their role of scrutinising local health organisations; and
  • a consultation on proposals to introduce regulations that would give local accredited bodies access to sensitive personal data from peoples’ health and care records.
• The CMA has published a speech by its Chairman on the application of UK merger control to NHS trusts mergers.

Housing:

• The Court of Appeal has held that a reviewing officer was entitled to substitute a less favourable decision on a section 202 review under the Housing Act 1996 (Temur v London Borough of Hackney).
• The DCLG has published information on the custom build serviced plot loan fund.

Local government:

• The government has made regulations under the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014.
• The High Court has held that a council’s scheme of delegation authorised principal planning officers to exercise certain functions and was not a violation of section 101 of the Local Government Act 1972 (Pemberton International Limited v London Borough of Lambeth).

Property and planning:

• The Law Commission has published a report recommending a new statutory scheme of conservation covenants, including a draft Conservation Covenants Bill.

Public procurement and state aid:

• The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 has been published.
• The Cabinet Office has published a progress report on the Mystery Shopper Service, highlighting trends in the types of procurement problems that it has identified.
• The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change has confirmed the volume of capacity to be procured and other auction parameters for the first Capacity Market auction.
• The High Court has ruled that a loan granted by Coventry City Council to the leaseholder of the Ricoh Arena did not constitute state aid (R (Sky Blue Sports & Leisure Ltd and others) v Coventry City Council).
• A European Commission Communication on standardising and amending transparency requirements in state aid guidelines was published in the Official Journal.

Regulation and enforcement:

• The Criminal Procedure Rules 2014 have been published and will come into force on 6 October 2014.