PLC Public Sector reports:
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Children Act 1989: local authority lawyers should be aware that the Court of Appeal in R(RO) v East Riding of Yorkshire Council and another [2011] reversed an earlier High Court decision that a child’s looked after status under the Children Act 1989 came to an end when he was placed in a residential school named in his statement of special educational needs under the Education Act 1996. The implications of this judgment for local authorities is that they must now provide social services support (including housing and medical care) to vulnerable children who fall into the category of looked after children until they are at least 21 years old (or 24 if they are in education).
Deprivation of liberty: local authorities will be relieved by the decision of the Court of Appeal decision in P & Q v Surrey County Council [2011] , holding that the appellants, both with learning difficulties, had not been deprived of their liberty under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. If the court had ruled in the alternative, local authorities could have been required to regularly review those in care to assess whether they had been deprived of their liberty and their Article 5 rights breached.
Employment: local authorities should take careful note of the EAT’s decision in Davies v Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and ensure that any final warnings given to an employee are valid as a tribunal can revisit their validity when considering the reasonableness of a decision to dismiss. A final warning that is retrospectively found to be invalid by a tribunal, but upon which an employer relied when reaching the decision to dismiss the employee, may have serious consequences in the context of an unfair dismissal claim since it is likely to take the employer’s decision out of the band of reasonable responses and lead the tribunal to conclude that the dismissal was unfair.
Local authority finance: finance officers should be aware that the Department for Communities and Local Government has issued a guidance note setting out the procedures for the issue of capitalisation directions by the Secretary of State for 2011-12.
Planning: local planning authorities may find that, following the High Court’s finding in Millgate Developments Ltd (R) v Wokingham Borough Council [2011], developers who provide a unilateral undertaking to pay a sum of money to make a development acceptable to the authority include a pre-condition that the undertaking should only take effect if a planning inspector decides the undertaking is necessary. Authorities should be aware that, although there is no explicit provision for a planning authority to reimburse surplus sums paid by a developer under an undertaking, the High Court concluded that section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972 allowed a local planning authority to do so.
In relation to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), the new discretionary planning charge, local planning authorities should be aware that the draft Community Infrastructure (Amendment) Regulations 2011, if approved by the House of Commons, will enable councils to set their own flexible payment deadlines, offer developers the option to pay the CIL by instalments, remove the £50,000 minimum threshold and reduce the administrative burden on councils. If approved, the regulations will come into force on 6 April 2011.
Social care services and carers: local authority social care services should be aware that the Department for Education has published guidance on the provision of local authority support to family and friends carers. The guidance is relevant to all family and friends carers regardless of the legal status of the children they are looking after.
Consultations: this week there have been consultations launched on:
- Guidance and a model procedure for school governing bodies complaint-handling in Wales.
- Draft guidance for schools and local authorities in Wales on implementing effective staff disciplinary procedures.
- A new approach to special educational needs and disability.
- Strengthening women’s voices in government.
- The future of Fair Deal.
- Pesticides regulations.
- Specific exceptions to the age discrimination ban under the Equality Act 2010.
- The 1,294 statutory duties on local authorities.
- The future of PFI.
The Department for Health has also invited local authorities interested in becoming local HealthWatch pathfinders to submit their proposals by 12 May 2011.