Public interest meaning

This Checklist highlights the principal points and potential pitfalls to address when preparing and agreeing a payment clause in a business to business contract, covering late payment as well. For a model clause, see Precedent: Payment clause-commercial contracts. Guidance on late payment is in Practice Notes: Penalty interest rates in commercial contracts and Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, including, in particular, the sections on: Contracts, organisations and debts subject to LPCD(I)A 1998 Calculating the statutory interest Express terms for late payment in place of statutory interest Meaning of 'grossly unfair' Price and payment terms in a contract are often closely linked. When using this checklist, also refer to: Drafting and negotiating a price clause-checklist. Legal issues, general comments and what to watch out for are noted. Late payment legislation The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 (LPCD(I)A 1998) allows all businesses and public sector bodies to claim statutory interest on late payment of commercial...

This Checklist is for the offeror and its advisers, outlining preliminary actions and considerations ahead of announcing an offer and issuing the offer/scheme document. It addresses preparation, bid planning, due diligence, announcements and other connected matters. This is not a complete Checklist; what is required will turn on the precise features of the transaction. Any references to Rules are to the rules of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers (the Code). Preparatory steps Appoint principal advisers (financial adviser, legal adviser, brokers, public relations consultants, etc). Prior to a bid—the offeror Hold the offeror’s initial board meeting. Constitute a capable offer committee with appropriate delegated authority from the board. Confirm there are no regulatory or commercial conflicts of interest. Identify all concert parties (and affiliated persons). Acting in concert Ensure all participants understand the secrecy requirements: financial advisers should, at the very start of discussions, alert clients to the critical importance of confidentiality...

Importance of establishing the planning history of a site Where a deal involves creating, acquiring or disposing of any interest in land, confirming whether existing or intended uses or any operational works on that land are lawful is essential. This is because permission for the ‘development’ of land, as defined by section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990) (see Overview: Is planning permission required?), must be in place unless the works or uses are allowed by a development order, for example the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 2015, SI 2015/596 (for England) or the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995, SI 1995/418 (for Wales) (see: Permitted development—overview). Failure to obtain planning permission when the law requires it, or failure to comply with conditions attached to a permission, amounts to a breach of planning control, which the local planning authority (LPA) may take enforcement action against (see: Planning enforcement—overview). As all grants of planning permission are decisions made by...

In brief The deadline for handling a freedom of information request is 20 working days, although in certain limited circumstances this period can be extended. Upon receipt of a request, an authority should: carefully log the exact date the request arrived check that the request is valid determine whether it holds information matching the description provided in the request estimate the likely cost of complying decide whether to levy a fee assess whether any exemptions apply issue a response to the applicant within the deadline For guidance on the freedom of information regime generally, see Practice Notes: Introduction to freedom of information Who is subject to the freedom of information regime For an overview of the whole process click here to view or print a separate PDF version...

In this issue: Key DR developments Claims and remedies Costs and funding Litigation Case management Evidence and disclosure ADR Scottish Dispute Resolution New content Dates for your diary Useful information Daily and weekly news alerts Dispute Resolution Highlights 2025/2026 Key DR developments Alternative dispute resolution European Parliament adopts new rules to modernise out-of-court dispute resolution for consumers The European Parliament has approved refreshed measures to enhance consumer out-of-court complaint handling, updating the EU’s ADR framework for the digital landscape and cross-border disputes. The reforms delineate ADR’s reach to cover matters arising both before and after contractual agreements, and in specified circumstances enable involvement by traders from third countries. The directive will come into force 20 days following publication and will begin to apply 32 months thereafter. For more, see: Parliament adopts new rules to modernise out-of-court dispute resolution for consumers—LNB News 16/12/2025 Court information HMCTS update hearing...

Abbot v The Information Commissioner [2024] UKFTT 478 (GRC) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling mirrors the approach in other recent decisions on the operation of the exception to disclosure under EIR 2004, SI 2004/3391, reg 12(5)(b), again stressing the considerable weight that legal professional privilege carries within our justice system. It therefore highlights the obstacles applicants will encounter when attempting to access documents protected by legal professional privilege, and that only ‘special or unusual’ circumstances are likely to be sufficient for the public interest in disclosure to prevail over the interest in preserving legal professional privilege. That said, legal professional privilege was not the Tribunal’s only concern when concluding that EIR 2004, SI 2004/3391, reg 12(5)(b) applied. The Tribunal indicated that the exception would have been engaged even without legal professional privilege, particularly because releasing the material would not have added anything of substance to what is already in the public domain. As such, the analysis turned on whether disclosure would materially add...

Thomas v Cheltenham Borough Council [2025] EWCA Civ 259 What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment will interest practitioners dealing with prior approval applications for electronic communication developments, and, more generally, those pursuing public law challenges about material considerations and appeals against High Court decisions. It reviews the Supreme Court's guidance in Friends of the Earth v Secretary of State for Transport [2021] UKSC 52 on three types of information that can amount to a material consideration. These include: information that legislation or policy, either expressly or by necessary implication, obliges the decision-maker to take into account or to ignore; and information that the decision-maker is entitled to consider where, in their own judgement and discretion, they regard it as appropriate. The judgment underlines that, within this third class, a decision-maker may choose not to refer to something others might regard as pertinent; yet, unless it was so plainly relevant that no rational decision-maker could have left it out of account, the omission to have regard...

Practice Note This Practice Note explores what amounts to a protected disclosure for the whistleblowing protections in the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996), into which the relevant provisions of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA 1998) have been incorporated. It addresses the general features of disclosures, when they qualify as qualifying disclosures, the need for a whistleblower to hold a reasonable belief that a relevant category of wrongdoing has occurred, and that the disclosure serves the public interest, where appropriate and necessary. It further considers when qualifying disclosures obtain protection and identifies the prescribed persons (people) to whom a disclosure may properly be directed. In addition, the Practice Note summarises the reporting obligations placed on certain prescribed persons to produce an annual written report concerning the workers’ disclosures received by them...

This Practice Note provides an overview of the legal framework and practical context for whistleblowing under the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996). It offers high-level guidance for organisations and supports the drafting of your whistleblowing policy and procedures. It is not a handbook for managing whistleblowing claims, which is an employment law issue. What is whistleblowing? Whistleblowing refers to a worker disclosing information about wrongdoing (ie making a disclosure), usually—though not always—arising in the workplace. For whistleblowing protections to apply, the worker must reasonably believe they are acting in the public interest and that the disclosure points to past, current, or likely future wrongdoing within one or more of these categories: criminal offences (eg fraud) failure to meet a legal obligation miscarriages of justice risks to someone’s health and safety damage to the environment from 6 April 2026, sexual harassment concealment of wrongdoing in these categories Whistleblowing legislation is contained in the ERA 1996, as...

STOP PRESS: On 19 June 2025, the Data (Use and Access) Bill secured Royal Assent, transforming into the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (DUAA 2025) and taking partial effect on that same date. Provisions of DUAA 2025 dealing with issues such as handling data subject access requests, and granting the power to make further regulations, commenced immediately on 19 June 2025. Other elements, relating to notices issued by the Information Commissioner and certain facets of law enforcement processing, began to apply on 19 August 2025 (being two months from the date of Royal Assent). The bulk of DUAA 2025’s measures will only commence once additional regulations, by way of statutory instruments, are made and brought into force. Parts 5 and 6 of DUAA 2025 operate to revise and update areas of UK data protection and ePrivacy law within the UK, including the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation, Assimilated Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations...

ARCHIVED: This Precedent has been archived and is not maintained. [ Name ] [ Address ] Ref No: [ number ] [ Date ] Dear [ applicant's name ] We acknowledge receipt of your [ letter OR email OR fax ] dated [ date of letter/email/fax from applicant ] regarding [ insert details ]. I can confirm the department holds this information...

This Agreement is entered into on [ insert date ] of [ insert month ] [ insert year ] by and between: [ insert name ], of [ insert address ] (' Council '); [ insert name ], of [ insert address ] (' County Council '); [ insert name ], a company duly incorporated and registered in [ insert details ] under number [ insert details ], whose registered office is at [ insert address ] (' Developer '); [ Additional parties as necessary eg owner, landlord, mortgagee, option holder etc. ] (' [ insert additional parties as necessary eg owner, landlord, mortgagee, option holder etc ] '). Recitals The Council is the local planning authority for the purposes of section 106 of the 1990 Act for the area within which the Land is situated and is the body by whom the obligations contained in this Deed are enforceable. The County Council is the local highway...

This Deed comprising a unilateral undertaking is hereby executed on [ insert day ] of [ insert month ] by: Parties [ insert name of developer ] of [ insert address ] (the Developer); and [ insert name of any additional parties as necessary eg owner, landlord, mortgagee, option holder etc ] of [ insert address of relevant party ] (the Owner/Landlord/Mortgagee etc) TO THE [ insert name ] COUNCIL of [ insert address of Council ] (the Council). BACKGROUND (A) The Council acts as the local planning authority for the purposes of s 106 of the 1990 Act for the area within which the Land lies. (B) [ Set out ownership particulars for the Land ]. (C) The Developer has lodged the Application with the Council and the Council has decided it will issue the Permission, conditional upon this Undertaking being completed. [ The Secretary of State has called in the Application for [ his/her...

A well-known problem amongst procurement professionals A widely recognised headache for procurement practitioners arises from the duty in regulation 53 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015), SI 2015/102 (PCR 2015, SI 2015/102, reg 53). It requires the ‘procurement documents’ to be accessible at the time a public contract is advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (the Official Journal, or OJEU). In essence, contracting authorities must use the internet to provide unrestricted, complete and immediate access, at no cost, to those documents from the day a notice, issued under regulation 51, appears in the Official Journal, or from the day an invitation to confirm interest is dispatched. The issue most often raised, particularly for public procurements run under the restricted procedure (and comparable routes that involve a pre-qualification phase ahead of the award stage), is whether the invitation to tender and the specification must already be available when the contract notice is published in the OJEU. Timing this disclosure often proves challenging for contracting authorities...

Serving the notice Administration of Estates Act 1925, s 1(3) states that on a person’s death the personal representatives step into the deceased’s place in relation to his real property, so far as any interest survives his death, and equally in relation to his personal property. It follows that a notice connected to that property should be directed to the deceased’s personal representative, irrespective of who holds that role, and irrespective of whether a grant of representation has yet been obtained, since the testator’s property vests in the executor from the moment of death, without any interval. Where the death is intestate, the administrator’s office is described as dative, because it arises only from the grant of administration. Accordingly, until a grant issues, the deceased’s property vests in the Public Trustee and not in the administrator, who acquires authority on the grant. Service on the personal representative is the proper course even before any grant...

In this Q&A we have assumed: the deceased’s assessment was correctly calculated a typical financial profile (not, for instance, no recourse to public funds) no top-up was due or paid no deprivation the income-based assessment was up to date Charging for a resident assessed as full cost and availing themselves of a deferred payment agreement would normally be as follows: income contribution: income minus personal allowance, per charging cycle remainder (after 12-week disregard) deferred against property Confirm the first was paid. For the second, check overcharging against beneficial interest; the lower capital limit is £14,250, not £23,250. Assessable capital = beneficial interest − 10% − £14,250 (Care and Statutory Support Guidance 8.12). Example: £200,000 interest gives £165,750. Systems may overrun, exceeding assessed capital; if so, reassess and cap recovery at that, with any surplus proceeds kept by the estate. Deprivation or unpaid income are not protected by the lower limit. If the...