Make sure that you have not missed a key development in your area of the law by reading our latest In brief review of the Practical Law Public Sector e-mail for the week ending 21 August 2013.
Replacing our recommended actions, In brief will include a one sentence summary of all of the legal developments reported in our weekly e-mail to make sure that no matter how busy our subscribers are, they can still keep in touch with all the latest developments.
Commercial:
- The High Court has considered whether an implied licence to use software for the purposes of a services contract continued after the initial period of that contract (Noemalife SPA v Infinitt UK Ltd).
Education and social services:
- The DfE has updated its non-statutory guidance, Advice for effective buying for your school.
Employment: the EAT has held that:
- A tribunal erred when it held that dismissal would always fall within the range of reasonable responses in cases of gross misconduct (Brito-Babapulle v Ealing Hospital NHS Trust).
- A tribunal erred when it failed to consider the effect of an employee’s post-dismissal conviction and imprisonment for assault when calculating an unfair dismissal compensatory award (Cumbria County Council and Governing Body of Dowdales School v Bates).
- An agreement mirroring the transferor’s employees’ terms and conditions on a TUPE transfer (including future pay increases) applied for an indefinite period to the transferring employees (Visteon Engineering Services Ltd v Oliphant and others).
- A tribunal erred in finding that HMRC, in issuing a warning to an asthmatic employee under its sickness absence policy, breached the duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees under the Equality Act 2010 (Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs v Whiteley).
Environment:
- The Welsh Government will amend its Building Regulations to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions targets for new homes and non-domestic buildings in Wales.
FOI and data protection:
- The First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) has ruled that documents subject to legal professional privilege should not be disclosed under the “affecting the course of justice” exception in regulation 12(5)(b) of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (Adams v Information Commissioner and Camden Council).
- The Information Commissioner’s Office has updated its data protection regulatory action policy following recommendations in the Leveson press inquiry report.
Health:
- The Competition Commission has decided to extend (for the second time) the period for its inquiry into the proposed Dorset NHS Foundation Trust merger.
Housing:
- The Court of Appeal has ruled that the High Court was correct to order possession for anti-social behaviour relying on hearsay evidence (John Boyd v Incommunities Limited).
- The DCLG has launched a consultation on its housing standards review, which covers the Building Regulations and the Code for Sustainable Homes.
- The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has ruled that a council must pay where sub-standard works had been carried out under a renewals grant scheme.
Human rights:
- The Upper Tribunal has upheld a decision that a claimant’s right to respect for her private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights would be infringed if she were forcibly returned to Nigeria (Secretary of State for the Home Department v Roseline Onoshoagbe Akhalu).
Local government:
- The DoH is consulting on proposed reforms to the adult social care funding system in England and Wales.
- The DCLG is consulting on a proposal to create a combined authority for local transport, regeneration and economic development in South Yorkshire.
Property and planning:
- Two statutory instruments have been made that introduce new hearing rules and a new fee structure for necessary wayleave and tree lopping applications under Schedule 4 to the Electricity Act 1989.
- The Land Registry has revised Practice Guides 10 and 40 to make it clear that any plan lodged with an application must clearly identify the land on an OS map.
- The Local Government Ombudsman has announced that a local authority has agreed to compensate property owners for the fall in value of their property that was caused by a planning error by the authority.
Public procurement:
- The Scottish Government has published a rapid evidence review, to inform the development of the Scottish Government Procurement Reform Bill.
- The government has published the latest edition of its construction pipeline, which sets out its planned construction projects for several years ahead.
Regulation and enforcement:
- The Competition Commission has published an issues statement in its market investigation into the supply of payday lending in the UK.