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 the English courts had jurisdiction to try a person living and working in Spain, who had allowed money to be paid into his Spanish bank account and then withdrawn from it, for converting criminal property contrary to section 327(1) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (R v Rogers and others).
- HMCTS has published a new Civil and Family Court Fees guide. The changes for family proceedings are minor given the changes already made this year in the Family Proceedings Fees (Amendment) Order 2014 that came in when the single family court was introduced on 22 April 2014.
Commercial:
- The Law Society has called for legal aid contracts to be exempted from the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.
Education and children’s services:
- The Special Educational Needs (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2014 and the Special Educational Needs (Consequential Amendments to Subordinate Legislation) Order 2014 have been made. The Order and the Regulations come into force on 1 September 2014.
- The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Order 2014 has been laid before Parliament. In addition, the DfE has published statutory guidance on pay and conditions for school teachers in England and Wales, which accompanies the Order.
- The Education Funding Agency has published the Academies Financial Handbook 2014.
- The DfE has published a consultation on a draft set of regulations to change the arrangements for school and early years finance in England.
Employment and pensions:
- The EAT has:
- held that an employment tribunal erred when it decided that a transfer occurred when a transferee assumed responsibility for employees. The tribunal should have asked when responsibility for the relevant business passed from one entity to another (Housing Maintenance Solutions Ltd v McAteer and others);
- upheld a tribunal decision that an employer failed to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled employee in a redundancy exercise. The employee’s disability meant that he was unable to attend administrative meetings, which the tribunal held included interviews (London Borough of Southwark v Charles); and
- held that a tribunal, having rejected both the employer’s argument that the employee had been dismissed and the employee’s argument that he had been dismissed, erred in finding that the employee’s employment continued (Mr Clutch Auto Centres v Blakemore).
FOI and data protection:
- The ICO has published the latest of its definition documents and template guides to information, which provide guidance on the information that the ICO would expect public authorities in different sectors to publish in order to meet their commitments under the ICO’s model publication scheme.
Housing:
- The DCLG has published the outcome of its consultation on protecting local authority leaseholders from unreasonable charges and has issued the Social Landlords Mandatory Reduction of Service Charges (England) Directions 2014 and the Social Landlords Discretionary Reduction of Service Charges (England) Directions 2014.
Local government:
- The DCLG has published a summary of the comments it received on its consultation on a draft transparency code for parish councils and set out its response to the consultation.
- The DfT has published a consultation on its proposed amendments to the Traffic Management Permit Scheme (England) Regulations 2007.
Property and planning:
- The Court of Appeal has considered:
- the use of the subsequent conduct of the parties as extrinsic evidence to determine a boundary where the conveyance was unclear (Norman and another v Sparling); and
- whether the Secretary of State had recovered jurisdiction of a planning appeal effectively and whether a planning inspector’s decision letter could be withdrawn after it was issued in error (Gleeson Developments Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities and Government and others).
- The High Court has considered whether land, made available under statutory powers by a local authority for public recreational use but which was not owned by the local authority, could be registered as a town and village green (Naylor v Essex County Council).
Regulation and enforcement:
- The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Surcharge) (Amendment) Order 2014 has been made, which amends the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Surcharge) Order 2012.
- The Video Recordings Act 1984 (Exempted Video Works) Regulations 2014, which will lower the existing statutory threshold for exemption of music, sport, religious and educational videos so that products likely to be unsuitable for younger children are age-rated, have been laid before Parliament in final form and will come into force on 1 October 2014.