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 Justice and Home Affairs Council has been informed of the possibility of the UK opting back in to a number of police and criminal justice measures of which it had originally opted out.
Civil litigation:
- The court statistics for January to March 2014 have been published.
- A new Civil Justice Council working group has been set up to look at issues arising from the Jackson reforms.
Education and children’s services:
- The High Court has:
- considered what evidence regarding a child’s state of mind should be used to determine whether they have acquired a new place of habitual residence (LC v RRL and others);
- allowed a child to be named in the reporting of her father’s trial for the murder of the child’s mother (London Borough of Waltham Forest v AD); and
- ordered the disclosure of a DNA profile in order to establish a child’s paternity, where the alleged father had refused to undergo paternity testing (Re Z (Children)).
- The Court of Protection has provided a non-exhaustive list of why it may not be in the best interests of an incapacitated person to appoint a family member as a deputy (Re BM and London Borough of Haringey v CM).
- The Requirements for School Food Regulations 2014 have been made and will come into force on 1 January 2015.
- The Education Funding Agency has published guidance on its procedure for dealing with complaints about academies.
- The DfE has published:
- a draft special education needs and disability code of practice for Parliamentary approval;
- published a consultation on promoting British values in schools;
- published a consultation on introducing an early years pupil premium and funding for two year olds; and
- published a response to its consultation on delegating children’s social care functions to third parties.
- The WG has published a consultation on draft guidance for schools on headteacher capability.
Employment and pensions:
- The draft Equality Act 2010 (Equal Pay Audits) Regulations 2014 have been published.
- The Supreme Court has held that a blanket disclosure of all convictions and cautions for the purposes of criminal records checks was a breach of individuals’ Article 8 rights under the ECHR (R(T and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department and another).
- The EAT has given guidance on how information received from third parties should be treated, upholding an ET decision to recuse itself after information emerged concerning the potential bias of the employment judge involved (Begraj and another v Heer Manak Solicitors and others).
- The European Commission has withdrawn its proposal to amend the Pregnant Workers Directive to increase the minimum period of maternity leave to 20 weeks.
- The Deputy Pensions Ombudsman has held that the trustee of a scheme was statute-barred from seeking recovery of overpayments made in error to a pensioner scheme member as it could have discovered the evidence with “reasonable diligence” (Clift (PO-2066)).
- The DCLG has published a consultation on draft regulations implementing new governance arrangements for the 2014 LGPS.
Housing:
- BRE has published a consultation on proposals for a voluntary sustainability standard for new homes.
Local government:
- The Local Government (Transparency) (Descriptions of Information) (England) Order 2014 has been published.
- The High Court has held that personal injury damages held in a deputyship account were disregarded capital and should not have been used when calculating an individual’s liability for care service costs (R(ZYN) v Walsall MBC).
- The DCLG has published a consultation on regulations governing local audit.
- The DfE has published a consultation on proposed changes to the Children (Performances) Regulations 1968.
Property and planning:
- The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure and Section 62A Applications)(England) (Amendment) Order 2014 has been made and will come into force on 1 October 2014.
- The CLLS has published drafting for the Community Infrastructure Levy.
- The Land Registry has announced that from 2015 it will assume responsibility for maintaining a composite local land charges register and have wider powers under the Land Registration Act 2002.
- The WG has published a consultation on commencing Schedule 4 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 which relates to reservoir safety in Wales.
Public procurement:
- The ECJ has ruled on the application of the in-house exception to a non-profit organisation.
Regulation and enforcement:
- The government has published a consultation response confirming the ban on the use of CCTV cameras for parking enforcement.