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:
Care homes: As a result of the decision in Watts v United Kingdom, any local authority which is contemplating closing one of its care homes should ensure that doing so is not a breach of the individual resident’s human rights and:
- Carry out a transparent and extensive consultation before deciding to close the care home.
- Consider the cost-effectiveness of its proposals, given that the costs savings of closure were considered by the European Court of Human Rights to be a relevant factor when deciding whether a decision to transfer residents was proportionate and justified and that a local authority was in a better position to evaluate local needs and conditions.
Children Act 1989: social services departments with responsibility for assessing and placing children in need should be aware that in SA and Kent County Council the High Court decided that although the Council treated the child as a child in need under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, it could not sidestep its section 20 duty to the child under the Children Act 1989 by making a private arrangement with her grandmother. On the facts of the case, the child was a looked after child and therefore her grandmother was entitled to receive the same rate as a foster carer. The decision, which has serious financial ramifications for social services authorities is being appealed to the Court of Appeal.
Employment: employers should review their employment practices in the light of the following recent decisions:
- Those employers carrying out a redundancy scoring exercise should ensure that they do not inflate the score of any female colleagues on maternity leave as they run the risk of discriminating on grounds of sex against a male colleague, see De Belin v Eversheds Legal Services Ltd. Therefore, in a redundancy situation an employer should ensure that, if there are actual ways in which a female employee on maternity leave can be scored against the relevant criteria, they should do so rather than automatically favouring the female employee above others.
- Employers should ensure that they properly observe their disciplinary procedures particularly if an employee’s contract contains an express term as to the conduct of disciplinary proceedings. In Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Court of Appeal held that, in principle, an employee is entitled to damages for loss of their future employment prospects if a finding of misconduct is made that leads to their dismissal but that finding would not have been made if the disciplinary procedure had been properly observed.
Planning: local planning authorities should have regard to a letter sent out by Eric Pickles this week, which confirms that regional spatial strategies (RSS) are going to be abolished, and that authorities should take this into account as a “material planning consideration” when taking any planning decisions.
Consultation: this week there was one consultation on the Care Quality Commission’s revised enforcement policy.