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 refused a defendant’s application for him to revisit a judgment on a strike out. The application was made about three hours after the judgment was handed down (Heron Bros Ltd v Central Bedfordshire Council (No 2)).
• The Master of the Rolls has issued a statement confirming that guideline hourly rates will remain at their existing levels, as originally set in 2010.

Commercial:

• The High Court has refused to imply a term of good faith in a loan note instrument. In the context of a right to amend a loan note, there was no justification for implying a term of good faith into the instrument where the overall documentation was extensive and detailed (Myers v Kestrel Acquisitions).

Education and children’s services:

• The High Court has quashed the majority of findings made by the Office of the School’s adjudicator following an investigation into a complaint made about a faith school’s over-subscription criteria (R (Governing Body of the London Oratory School v The Schools Adjudicator).
• The Court of Appeal has provided guidance on when it is appropriate to rule out a potential long-term carer before a final hearing (Re S (a child)).

Employment and pensions:

• The EAT has considered whether the dismissal of the Mayor of Liverpool from a salaried post at a publicly-funded school was for “some other substantial reason”, a potentially fair reason under section 98(1)(b) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (Anderson v Chesterfield High School).
• The Employment Tribunal has:
  • awarded £19,500 for injury to feelings to a zero hours worker who was subjected to gender harassment (Southern v Britannia Hotels Ltd and another); and
  • made a costs award in favour of a group of claimants whose fees had been paid by their union on their behalf (Legge and others v Prestige Homecare Ltd (in administration) and others).
• The Funded Public Service Pension Schemes (Reduction of Cash Equivalents) Regulations 2015 have been made and came into force on 16 April 2015.

Environment:

• The Landfill Tax (Amendment) (No 2) Regulations 2015 have been made and came into force in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on 1 April 2015. The Regulations make provision for information to be submitted to HMRC about waste fines (residual waste from waste processing) that are to be disposed of by means of landfill.
• The Infrastructure Act 2015 (Commencement) (Wales) Regulations 2015 have been made and brought into force Part 4 of the Infrastructure Act 2015 in Wales on 12 April 2015.

FOI and data protection:

• The Advocate General has given her opinion on search form questions and charging under the Environmental Information Regulations following a referral from the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) (Opinion of Advocate General Sharpston).
• The ECJ has issued a preliminary ruling concerning the application of Regulation 2252/2004 on standards for security features and biometrics in passports and travel documents issued by member states (Willems and others v Burgemeester van Nuth and others).

Local government:

• The High Court has:
  • ruled on when authorities will be responsible for conducting “children in need” assessments under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and for housing homeless children and families under the Housing Act 1996 (R(AM) v The London Borough of Havering and others); and
  • dismissed a challenge to a council’s decision to increase parking charges. The claimant had alleged that the primary purpose of the increase was to raise revenue, contrary to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (Chaumeton v The London Borough of Camden).
• The Welsh Government’s National Assets Working Group has published a best practice guide to community asset transfers in Wales.

Public procurement:

• The ECJ has:
  • dismissed an appeal by a claimant in relation to a procurement process organised by the European Medicines Agency (European Dynamics Belgium SA, European Dynamics Luxembourg SA, Evropaïki Dynamiki – Proigmena Systimata Tilepikoinonion Pliroforikis kai Tilematikis AE and European Dynamics UK Ltd v European Medicines Agency); and
  • handed down a preliminary ruling on a reference from a Romanian court on the the use of references to branded products in the technical specifications of a tender (SC Enterprise Focused Solutions SRL v Spitalul Județean de Urgență Alba Iulia).