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 Local Government email.

Adult social services

• The Court of Protection has ruled that the publication of a judgment concerning the care and finances of an elderly women was in the public interest (Aidiniantz v Riley).
• The DH has sent guidance on the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Deprivation of Liberty safeguards to local authorities and NHS leads.

Children’s services

• The Court of Appeal  has encouraged local authorities to file a response statement to applications for permission to appeal if the appellant is a litigant in person in a care and placement order case(Re B (A child)).
• The High Court has:
  • stated that local authorities and media should collaborate on reporting restrictions in a care proceedings  case (Tickle v Council of the Borough of North Tyneside and others); and
  • confirmed that a secure accommodation order can be made for child aged 16 (Re P (Application for Secure Accommodation Order)).
• A circuit judge in the Family Court has disregarded a deputy High Court judge’s direction to transfer the care proceedings (Re J (Refusal to transfer to HC) [2015] EWFC B162).
• The Home Office has announced that from 31 October 2015, health and social care professionals and teachers must report female genital mutilation cases  that they become aware of to the police.
• The ADCS has published new guidance on conducting age assessments of unaccompanied children seeking asylum.

Civil litigation

• The High Court has:
  • refused to grant security for costs under CPR 25.13(2)(c) due to the merits of the claim and the defendant’s failure to mediate (Gresport Finance Ltd v Battaglia); and
  • considered the correct application of CPR 36.14(3), which sets out the sums that the court will order that the claimant is entitled to “unless it considers it unjust” (RXDX v Northampton Borough Council).
• The TCC given some advice on what a statement of agreed facts should look like (Amey Birmingham Highways Ltd v Birmingham City Council).
• The Bar Council and Law Society have issued a joint position paper on lawyer-client confidentiality in the context of debate over balancing privacy and security in the exercise of investigatory powers.
• The Lord Chief Justice has delivered the speech “The Law of Wales: Looking Forwards“.

Commercial

• The draft Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Transparency in Supply Chains) Regulations 2015 have been approved by the House of Lords.
• The Trading Standards Institute has published a consultation on a draft Pricing Practices Guide.
• The Commercial Court Users’ Group Committee has published an update on the items that were discussed at its meeting on 7 October 2015.

Education

• The House of Commons Library has published a briefing paper that provides an overview of the duties on both state-funded and independent schools to safeguard children from extremism.
• The DfE has published a consultation seeking views on the government’s proposals to strengthen its powers to intervene in underperforming or “coasting” schools.

Employment and pensions

• The Scottish Government has written a letter to the UK Minister for Skills, Nick Boles, requesting that Scotland be excluded entirely from the application of the Trade Union Bill 2015-16.
• The draft Exclusivity Terms in Zero Hours Contracts (Redress) Regulations 2015 have been published.
• The Ministry of Defence has published Your guide to Employing Reservists, which is intended to explain the benefits to employers of employing reservists.
• The DWP is consulting on the draft Pensions Act 2014 (Abolition of Contracting-out for Salary Related Pension Schemes) (Consequential Amendments) Order 2016.

FOI and data protection

• The ICO has:
  • issued a monetary penalty notice (MPN) of £130,000 to an online pharmacy for failing to process personal data fairly and lawfully in compliance with the first data protection principle of the Data Protection Act 1998; and
  • published a guide on how to disclose information safely by removing personal data before publishing.

Housing

• The European Court of Human Rights has held that the entitlement to accommodation under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 was a “civil right” under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights but there had been no breach in the current case (Fazia Ali v The United Kingdom – 40378/10 (Judgment (Merits and Just Satisfaction): Court (Fourth Section))).
• The Housing (Right to Buy) (Prescribed Forms) Wales (Amendment) Regulations 2015 came into force on 19 October 2015.

Local government law

• The Supreme Court has held that the UK Border Agency’s refusal of a visa application was unlawful as it was in breach of its own policy document (Mandalia v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2015] UKSC 59).
• The High Court has rejected a challenge to Lincolnshire County Council’s second consultation on its review of library provision (Draper v Lincolnshire County Council [2015] EWHC 2964 (Admin)).
• The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (Commencement) Order 2015 came into force on 16 October 2015.  Alongside this the Welsh Government also launched a consultation on indicators for the well-being goals in the Act.
• The National Assembly for Wales has published a consultation on the draft Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Bill.

Property and planning

• The  provisions of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 relevant to planning lawyers planning came into force on 26 October 2015.
• The draft Wales Bill 2015-16 has been published.
• The TCC has:
  • awarded a professional consultant damages for unpaid fees, subject to deductions for losses arising from its negligence (William Clark Partnership Ltd v Dock St PCT Ltd); and
  • considered the interplay between a collateral warranty limitation clause and section 1(3) of the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978 (Bloomberg LP v Malling Pre-Cast Ltd).
• The DCLG has published a consultation on rentcharge redemption and leasehold valuation.

Public procurement

• The ECJ has handed judgments on preliminary references from:
  • an Italian court regarding the compatibility of national law with the EU procurement rules regarding the exclusion of tenderers (Case C-425.14 Impresa Edilux Srl and Società Italiana Costruzioni e Forniture Srl v Assessorato Beni Culturali e Identità Siciliana — Servizio Soprintendenza Provincia di Trapani (and others)); and
  • a Basque court regarding a location requirement in a call for tenders for public health services (C-552/13 – Grupo Hospitalario Quirón v Departamento de Sanidad del Gobierno Vasco).
• The Crown Commercial Service has published a brief guide to the EU Public Contracts Directive.

Regulation and enforcement

• Two search warrants issued under regulation 21 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 to a local authority trading standards department have been quashed by the High Court as they did not comply with regulation 22 (Hargreaves v Brecknock and Radnorshire Magistrates’ Court).