“In May 2012, the Home Secretary announced a review of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which came into force a year earlier in April 2011, as an outcome of the Red Tape Challenge. The review is focusing in particular on levels of understanding of the PSED and guidance, the costs and benefits of the duty, how organisations are managing legal risk and ensuring compliance with the duty and what changes, if any, would secure better equality outcomes. It is being overseen by a steering group, appointed by Government Ministers, largely drawn from public authorities.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 22nd March 2013
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“Michael Gove’s flagship education project has been dealt an embarrassing blow after inspectors demanded that three of the new wave of ‘free schools’ must improve their teaching, leadership and pupil performance. In the first official verdict on the Education Secretary’s free schools programme, Ofsted inspectors have ruled that three of the first nine institutions to be examined are “not good” schools.”
The Independent, 17th March 2013
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“A wide range of public bodies are using private detectives to do their surveillance work, with many using security firms to dodge legal restrictions, a campaign group says.”
BBC News, 17th March 2013
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Fixed-term contracts by which an employee worked on a government scheme regardless of when the scheme began or ended could not be included in any calculation of four years’ continuous employment which would otherwise allow a fixed-term employee to become a permanent employee.”
WLR Daily, 7th November 2012
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
“The question of whether the convention on collective cabinet responsibility operates, in effect, as a trump card in the FOIA context has been considered in a number of tribunal cases (see further for example the Lamb case concerning a request for disclosure of the Iraq war cabinet minutes and the Cabinet Office case concerning cabinet discussions over the Westland takeover (‘the Westland case’)). Last week, in Cabinet Office v IC, the First-Tier Tribunal handed down a decision in which it reconfirmed the principle that the convention, whilst undoubtedly an important consideration in the FOIA context, does not create any absolute bar against disclosure.”
Panopticon, 23rd October 2012
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
“Political interference in the granting of legal aid – whether actual or suspected by members of the public – could become a genuine concern for the government after next April. Should public money be denied cases brought against government departments or that involve unpopular characters or controversial issues, ministers’ impartiality in the decision-making process may come under fire, writes Elizabeth Davidson.”
LegalVoice, 23rd October 2012
Source: www.legalvoice.org.uk
“The Department for Education (DfE) was guilty of a breach of UK data protection laws when a ‘temporary security flaw’ meant that personal information belonging to respondents to one of its consultations were ‘compromised’, the UK’s data protection watchdog has said.”
OUT-LAW.com, 19th October 2012
Source: www.out-law.com
“Public sector bodies will generally be required to disclose information even if it is stored in computer ‘recycle bins’, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said.”
OUT-LAW.com, 12th October 2012
Source: www.out-law.com
“Emails from private accounts and texts sent by the prime minister and cabinet members could be accessible under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).”
BBC News, 30th September 2012
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“The manoevres by which the Chagossians were evicted from their islands in the Indian Ocean, the late 1960s and early 1970s, so to enable the US to operate an air base on Diego Garcia, do not show the UK Foreign Office in its best light. Indeed, after a severe rebuke from the courts in 2000, the FCO accepted that the original law underlying their departure was unlawful, and agreed to investigate their possible resettlement on some of their islands. The first of these new cases is an environmental information appeal concerning the next phase of the story – how the FCO decided that it was not feasible to resettle the islanders in 2002-2004.”
UK Human Rights Blog, 20th September 2012
Source: www.ukhumanrightsblog.com
“The Upper Tribunal’s judgment in Evans v IC and Others (Seven Government Departments) [2012] UKUT 313 (AAC) (Mr Justice Walker, Professor John Angel and Suzanne Cosgrave), handed down yesterday, has received extensive media coverage – unsurprisingly so, given the subject matter (Prince Charles’ correspondence with government departments) and the requester (Rob Evans of the Guardian). The judgment is stupendously long (65 pages, plus 3 open annexes). Here are the salient points.”
Panopticon, 19th September 2012
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
“Government back-to-work schemes criticised as ‘forced labour’ were ruled lawful by the high court on Monday.”
The Guardian, 6th August
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
“The Government is seeking views on whether to extend its existing powers to stabilise or wind up ‘systemically important’ large banks to other vital financial services functions such as investments and insurance.”
OUT-LAW.com, 6th August 2012
Source: www.out-law.com
“As Tim Pitt-Payne QC commented in his post on the report earlier today, the Committee’s report has not landed a bombshell in the middle of the FOIA landscape. To a very large extent, the report endorses the current structure and content of the legislation, something which the Commissioner clearly welcomes. However, whilst the Committee has largely resisted calls for FOIA to be amended, it has commented fairly extensively on how the Act should be applied in practice. This commentary is doubtless going to influence the evolution of FOIA case-law for the foreseeable future.”
Panopticon, 26th July 2012
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
“The Government faces a Supreme Court action this week demanding that it slash air pollution levels by 2015. Lawyers acting for the environmental charity ClientEarth are making a legal challenge to force the coalition to cut levels of lethal nitrogen dioxide (NO2) to within European Commission limits.”
The Independent, 15th July 2012
Source: www.independent.co.uk
“The Ministry of Justice says reducing the ’30-year rule’ for publishing secret government papers to 20 years will cost up to £52m.”
BBC News, 13th July 2012
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“A former legal adviser at the Foreign Office has said that legal issues are not addressed as effectively as they might be at the heart of government because the Prime Minister does not have a lawyer among his immediate circle of advisers.”
BBC News, 5th June 2012
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
“Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were disciplined a total of 992 times for unlawfully or inappropriately accessing individuals’ social security records between April 2011 and January this year.”
OUT-LAW.com, 22nd May 2012
Source: www.out-law.com
“The official assessment of the risks involved in the government’s NHS shakeup will never be published after the cabinet exercised its rare right of veto to keep it secret.”
The Guardian, 8th May 2012
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
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