PLC Public Sector reports:
Make sure that you have not missed a key development in your area of the law by reviewing our latest list of recommended actions.
This week’s actions are:
Adult autism: following the publication of the Department of Health’s findings from the consultation on Adult Autism Strategy, local authority officers in housing, recruitment and social services should familiarise themselves with the report to ensure that their own processes are effective in providing support to adults with autistic spectrum conditions.
Home education: LEA officers who will be responsible for monitoring the education home-educated children receive and for ensuring that parents of such children co-operate with the registration and monitoring requirements when the Children, School and Families Bill comes into force will be interested in reading the DCSF’s public consultation response to the arrangements for registering and monitoring.
Planning: planning lawyers who may be asked to advise on the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 should familiarise themselves with Crowley (t/a Crowley Civil Engineers) v Rushmoor Borough Council, which confirms that an adjoining owner can claim compensation if the party wishing to carry out work to their property fails to serve a party wall notice on them by:
- Retrospectively applying the arbitration provisions of the Act.
- Issuing court proceedings claiming damages for breach of statutory duty or on other grounds such as negligence, nuisance, trespass or withdrawal of support.
Planning Performance Agreements: local planning authorities should ensure they are familiar with the new guide about PPAs, a framework to project manage and streamline the planning process for complex developments.
Social housing: those advising on housing, and in particular on requests by social tenants for a mutual exchange of property, should be aware that, following the decision of the High Court in R on the application of McIntyre and Anor v Gentoo Group Ltd:
- It will usually be reasonable to impose conditions on an exchange of tenancy provided the conditions are valid in private law.
- Any condition on exchange must relate to the tenancy of the property that is proposed for exchange.
- Any challenge by an aggrieved tenant who has been refused permission to assign or exchange their property must be brought in the county court, and not the High Court, even if it includes a claim that the housing association’s decision was unlawful as a matter of public law.
TUPE: local authority employment lawyers advising on TUPE will welcome the EAT’s finding in Unison v Somerset County Council (1) Taunton Deane Borough Council (2) South West One Ltd (3) that:
- The definition of “affected employees” in regulation 13 of TUPE only covers those employees who will or may be transferred, or have internal job applications pending at the time and does not include others in the workforce who may apply in the future for a vacancy in the part of the service that transferred.
- The “special circumstances” defence under regulation 13(9) of TUPE was correctly applied.
Fair Share Fee Schemes: local authorities operating Fair Share Fee Schemes, where every member of a workforce benefiting from a union’s negotiating services has an amount deducted from their salary whether or not they are members of the union, should be aware that following the decision of the EAT in Samuels v London Bus Services Limited and another, such schemes:
- Amount to a detriment and are contrary to section 146(3) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
- Entitle the affected employee to compensation from their employer.
Consultations: this week there were six consultations on:
- The introduction of Pupil and Parent Guarantees.
- Regulations to extend the remit of the Local Government Ombudsman in England to investigate parent and pupil complaints about school matters.
- Proposed further amendments to the disclosure of information regime.
- Changes to the Code for Sustainable Homes and introducing a new energy efficiency standard.
- Draft guidance on the new groundwater regulations.
- Proposed extension to Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks.