Practical Law

Data Protection: those responsible for ensuring that departments comply with the data protection principles should be aware that the Information Commissioner’s Office has imposed a substantial fine on a local authority for sending unencrypted e-mails to an incorrect recipient.  The ruling demonstrates the importance of ensuring that sensitive data must be sent over a secure network or be encrypted.

Education: education lawyers:

• Should be aware that the DfE has published statutory guidance for maintained schools in England that explain the School Governance (Constitution) (England) Regulations 2012.
• That the Office of Fair Trading has written to state primary and secondary schools in the UK to ask them to review their school uniform policies and to end any arrangements that they have with a single retailer or supplier.

Employment: employer lawyers should note that the:

• Supreme Court has ruled that equal pay claims brought in the High Court more than six months after the end of the claimants’ employment, which would have been out of time in an employment tribunal, should not be struck out under section 2(3) of the Equal Pay Act 1970.
• EAT has overturned a tribunal’s decision that the “establishment” where teachers worked for collective redundancy consultation purposes was the Education and Leisure Service of the Scottish council and not their individual schools. It did so on the basis that the term “establishment” in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 relates to a physical presence, and is largely directed to the employees’ place of work.
• Employment tribunal has held that denying a pay rise to NHS employees on the basis that they had exceeded their sickness absence thresholds was an unlawful deduction of wages since the policy was inconsistent with the nationally agreed NHS terms and conditions that had been expressly incorporated into their contracts of employment.

Health: those responsible for implementing the provisions of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 should be aware that the third commencement order has been made and will bring into force various provisions of the Act on 1 November and 1 December 2011 and 1 February 2012.

Judicial review: local authority lawyers will be interested in the recent High Court decision of Ali v London Borough of Newham in which the Court held that Newham’s decision to depart from the national Department for Transport guidance on the design and specification of tactile paving for the visually impaired was not lawfully justified and there were no valid reasons for it to have decided to depart from it.

Local government: local government officers should be aware that the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors has published a guidance note on how to apply the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 to officer executive decisions.

Property and planning: local authority property and planning lawyers will be interested to know that:

• The Growth and Infrastructure Bill had its second reading on 30 October 2012.
• The Court of Appeal has upheld the High Court’s decision that a playing field, set out and maintained as a recreation ground firstly under section 80 of the Housing Act 1936 and then its statutory successor, was not registrable as a town or village green.
• The High Court has held that that a landlord will only be liable to a tenant who was seriously injured on the front steps of the property he rented under section 4 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 and not section 2 of the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 as well.
• The Land Registry has revised Practice Guide 7 on Entry of price paid or value stated in the register and Practice Guide 52 on Easements claimed by prescription.

Consultations: this week consultations were published on:

• A draft school organisation code in Wales.
• Improving the functions of Community Health Councils in Wales.
• Improving local government transparency.
• Draft regulations on business rate retention.
• Setting up town and parish councils.
• HS2: safeguarding and compensation proposals.

The government has also published a summary of responses to the draft Local Audit Bill and a summary of responses to its consultation on deferred prosecution agreements.