HCR Law
6 Experts
13 Contributions by HCR Law Experts
PRACTICE NOTES
General objective of local traffic authorities—contemplating making a traffic order
Traffic rules frequently create preferential treatment for chosen modes of travel, for example, though this can slow down others on the road. The typical aim is to nudge travellers towards vehicles that cut congestion and/or emissions overall. Section 122 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (RTRA 1984) sets out broad aims for local traffic authorities when considering a traffic order...
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
Enforcing road traffic regulation orders is more complicated than for many other offences, as the first indication that a breach has occurred is often merely a report that a particular motor vehicle was, for example, speeding, travelling the wrong way along a one-way street, or parked in the wrong place or left for too long. A vehicle cannot commit an offence; it is the driver who does, and identifying the actual driver is frequently difficult, especially with parking offences, because they are commonly not in or near the vehicle.
Road traffic—criminal offences
Standard criminal law procedures can be used where a witness can reliably identify the motorist alleged to have committed the offence. In other situations and circumstances, when the driver’s identity is not known at all, secondary offences have been created, as in section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (RTA 1988), which makes it an
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
This Practice Note builds on the guidance in Practice Note: Road traffic—traffic regulation order procedure and notices. It sets out which amendments to earlier road traffic orders can be folded into a consolidation or minor order, outlines why making such an order can be beneficial, and cross-refers to the Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996 (the Traffic Orders Regs 1996), SI 1996/2489. It also clarifies that an experimental traffic order (ETO) operates as a trial scheme for traffic control, and summarises the publicity and objections regime that governs it.
Consolidation and minor orders
A road traffic order that simply gathers previous traffic orders into a single instrument should not attract controversy, as it, by definition, leaves the street’s traffic position materially unchanged. Accordingly, regulation 21 of the Traffic Orders Regs 1996, SI 1996/2489, allows a
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
Archived: This Practice Note is archived and no longer maintained.
This Practice Note concerns the commission of data protection offences before 25 May 2018.
Where a data protection offence occurred before 25 May 2018, it may still be prosecuted under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998), even though that legislation has been repealed by the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). Where an offence is committed on or after 25 May 2018, charges should be considered under the DPA 2018. See Practice Note: Offences under the Data Protection Act 2018.
The offences of unlawful obtaining of personal data under the DPA 1998
Note that these offences cannot be committed after 25 May 2018.
The DPA 1998 includes various criminal offences that can be prosecuted by the Information Commissioner or the Director of Public Prosecutions, who must give their consent for such
Corporate Crime
PRACTICE NOTES
This Practice Note reviews the principal issues and risks that routinely arise on major construction for education providers, spanning higher education, further education, academies and independent schools. See also Practice Note: Building Schools for the Future/Priority School Building Programme [Archived].
Typical procurement routes
While any conventional procurement route can be used on an education project, three factors usually drive the route selected by education clients for their construction programmes:
Nature of client Education clients seldom commission large capital schemes. It is not their core activity and, except for sizeable university estates teams, they rarely possess the in-house expertise to procure major works successfully. They are regarded as inexperienced construction clients.
Funding Funding is often capped and time limited. As a result, works are commonly let on a fixed-price contract, typically at a higher cost, to secure the level of certainty and control sought by
Construction
PRACTICE NOTES
ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and is not maintained. It reviews the Building Schools for the Future government initiative together with the current Priority School Building Programme, and examines the construction contracts adopted as well as the negotiation issues commonly encountered in practice...
Building Schools for the Future
Building Schools for the Future (BSF) was a Labour-led programme announced in 2003 by the Department for Education and Skills (which later became the Department for Education, or DFE), and it launched in 2004. Its purpose included, among other objectives, delivering a step change in children’s education by upgrading facilities, property and learning environments across local secondary schools. BSF was intended to be financed by a £55bn investment to improve schools over a 15–20-year period. Delivery was co‑ordinated nationally by Partnerships for Schools, set up by the DFE as both a company and a
Construction
PRACTICE NOTES
Archived: This Practice Note has been archived and is not maintained. It is intended for situations where a notification offence arose before 25 May 2018. If a notification offence occurred prior to 25 May 2018, it may still be prosecuted under the Data Protection Act 1998, notwithstanding that the legislation has been repealed. Notification offences under the DPA 1998 cannot be committed after 25 May 2018. The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) contains no corresponding notification offences, so any such offence could only have been committed historically, before 25 May 2018 when the DPA 1998 was in force. For information on the data protection offences created by the DPA 2018, see Practice Note: Offences under the Data Protection Act 2018.
Notification required under the Data Protection Act 1998
Note that these offences cannot be committed after 25 May 2018.
Failure to notify the
Corporate Crime
PRACTICE NOTES
Local authorities
This Practice Note identifies which local authorities may authorise and regulate on-street parking, stressing that the competence is confined to roads and requires the consent of the highway authority or any other person charged with maintaining the road. It also sets out how councils can impose charges for designated on-street parking places, including through parking meters and other parking devices.
At common law, leaving a vehicle on a highway constitutes an obstruction of the public right of passage, yet stopping has always been permitted for loading and unloading, and (for reasonable periods) during meal breaks or where there is mechanical breakdown. In any case, it is arguably not a genuine obstruction (ie not a nuisance at common law) if there is ample space for traffic to pass the parked vehicle. The Road Traffic Regulation Acts addressed this by authorising certain local
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
This Practice Note identifies the traffic authorities empowered to manage highway traffic across the highway network under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (RTRA 1984), and outlines a traffic authority’s obligations in relation to road traffic. It sets out how that duty is discharged by making Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) pursuant to the RTRA 1984, and the situations where approval from the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers is required, where necessary and appropriate, before an Order is made.
What is a Traffic Regulation Order?
A TRO is a formal order or byelaw issued by a traffic authority specifying the type and scope of traffic restrictions within a particular locality...
Local Government
PRACTICE NOTES
The handling of personal data for policing objectives is expressly and specifically governed by Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018) and operates as a separate and distinct regime from the general processing of personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation, Assimilated Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (UK GDPR). DPA 2018, Pt 3 applies to those competent authorities that process personal data for ‘law enforcement purposes’. It includes processing for preventing, investigating, detecting or prosecuting criminal offences, or carrying out criminal penalties, and encompasses safeguarding against, and preventing, threats to public security. DPA 2018, Pt 3 transposed the EU Law Enforcement Directive (EU) 2016/680 (EU LED) into UK law. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued guidance specifically on duties under DPA 2018, Pt 3, which is essential reading for advisers in this field. The ICO guidance, currently under review, can be
Corporate Crime
PRACTICE NOTES
ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and not maintained. It considered data protection and personal data sharing questions arising in cross-border investigations involving US and EU companies prior to the ruling in Facebook Ireland and Schrems (Case C-311/18), where the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down the EU-US Privacy Shield and confirmed that any use of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) must, in practice, provide an adequate level of protection for personal data, following a case by case evaluation of the circumstances of the transfer. For details on sharing personal data between the UK and EU in light of that judgment and IP completion day, see Practice Notes: Data protection and internal investigations, and UK GDPR and EU GDPR—transfers of personal data internationally and to international organisations.
Who is the
Corporate Crime
Q&As
LPA’s obligations when imposing financial contributions
Developers are frequently obliged to make monetary payments to the local planning authority (LPA) to fund defined projects, helping to offset the harmful effects of a scheme and thereby enable the grant of planning permission. This Q&A addresses circumstances where the section 106 agreement contains no specific express clawback mechanism.
When a planning obligation (a section 106 obligation) is proposed to secure a financial contribution at the determination stage of a planning application, that contribution must satisfy the stringent legal tests in regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010, SI 2010/948 (SI 2010/948, reg 122) (as amended). Only by meeting those tests can any such payment lawfully and ultimately underpin the grant of planning permission...
Planning
Q&As
In this Q&A we focus on the amendments introduced by Regulation (EU) 2015/2424 (subsequently consolidated in Regulation (EU) 2017/1001, the EU Trade Mark Regulation (EUTM Regulation)), along with the key points to consider when seeking protection for an unconventional mark.
EU Trade Mark Regulation—What is new?
See News Analysis: New EU trade mark reforms, which provides an analysis of the background to the new EU trade mark reforms. As outlined there, five new categories of trade mark can be applied for in the EU:
Position
Pattern
Motion
Multimedia
Hologram
These are in addition to a Certification Mark, which has been available in the UK for some time. The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has issued guidance relating to the new EU trade mark reforms...
IP
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