Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector.

Charity Commission

Inquiry update

As part of an ongoing inquiry into the charity's governance, the Commission has appointed an Interim Manager to Dudley Central Mosque and Muslim Community Centre. The interim manager's role will be to review and revise the charity's governing document, and ensure an election takes place to appoint new trustees who will then be responsible for taking the charity forward.

Sector General

DSC has published a blog outlining what funders can do to support infrastructure charities.

Climate change

In the early Autumn urban and rural communities will have the chance to submit bids to a new £10 million Community Energy Fund to help communities develop local renewable energy projects.

Diversity and inclusion

The Government has announced it is consulting on changes to regulations that will mean all new non-domestic public and private buildings in England will be required to provide separate single-sex toilets for women and men and/or a self-contained, private toilet as a minimum.

AI

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has published its report Connected tech: smart or sinister? which considers the possible benefits and harms of using "connected technology" (devices connected to the internet or other digital networks) in various contexts. With respect to the workplace, the report recommends that:

  • The monitoring of employees should be done only in consultation with, and with the consent of, those being monitored.
  • The Information Commissioner's Office should develop its draft guidance, Employment practices: monitoring at work, into a principles-based code for designers and operators of workplace connected technology.
  • The government should commission research to improve the evidence base regarding the deployment of automated and data collection systems at work.
  • The government should clarify the role of the Health and Safety Executive in the regulation of Artificial Intelligence and detail how it can be supported in fulfilling this remit.

Fundraising

Consultation on updating the Code of Fundraising Practice

The Fundraising Regulator has announced its consultation on the code review will launch on Wednesday 6 September at the CIOF Scottish Fundraising Conference. Consultation events will take place in Northern Ireland, Wales and England during September and early October. Details on these events and information on how to attend will be shared soon. The consultation will run for 12 weeks and aims to gather feedback on any proposals for amending the code. The new code is not expected to come into effect until early 2025.

Data protection

Website designs

The Information Commissioner's Office and Competition and Markets Authority have published a joint position paper, Harmful design in digital markets: How online choice architecture practices can undermine consumer choice and control over personal information. The paper sets out the pitfalls of harmful design and gives advice on what you should be doing instead. Practices highlighted in the paper include overly complicated privacy controls, default settings that give less control over personal information and bundling privacy choices together in ways that push consumers to share more data than they would otherwise wish to do.

The ICO says it will be assessing cookie banners of the most frequently used websites in the UK, and taking action where harmful design is affecting consumers.

If you're interested in discussing harmful design practices and the alternatives available, the ICO will be holding a stakeholder workshop in the autumn about good practices for the design of privacy choices online. You can register your interest by email here: digitalregulationcooperation@ico.org.uk.

Freedom of information

Last week the ICO published action on five public bodies – Liverpool City Council, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the Ministry of Defence and the Environment Agency – for failures to meet expected standards in responding to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The ICO's Director of Freedom of Information and Transparency has also published this blog looking back at enforcement of FOI since publication of a new strategy a year ago. He says the ICO has "delivered more strategic regulation in this area of our work than in the 17 years since FOI came into force in 2005".

Public procurement and subsidy control

The High Court has held that group companies who stood to be involved in service delivery under an unsuccessful bid under the Concession Contracts Regulations 2016 (CCR 2016), but did not bid themselves, did not have standing to challenge the procurement award. International Game Technology PLC and others v Gambling Commission [2023] EWHC 1961 (TCC) The bid and award preceded the UK's withdrawal from the EU and the end of the UK-EU implementation period on 31 December 2020. Among other reasons, the court considered that the UK had not expanded, nor had it been required to expand, the pool of those with standing under the Remedies Directive (89/665/EEC), which was limited to those "having or having had an interest in obtaining a particular contract". Unless specified exceptional circumstances applied, the court held that this limited standing to those who had tendered unsuccessfully for a particular contract. Having a mere interest in the award of a contract (as a subcontractor might) was insufficient. None of the subcontractor claimants, nor any of the other claimants, were economic operators under the CCR 2016. The judgment stated that there is no direct authority concerning the standing of a potential subcontractor (and sub-subcontractor) in a procurement challenge under the CCR 2016, which will be of some relevance to other contexts, potentially procurements under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/102). ( (28 July 2023).)

The Cabinet Office has published Procurement Policy Note: Using Standard Contracts (PPN), which analyses these three standard contracts used by government departments and other public sector organisations:

  • Model Services Contract
  • Mid-Tier Contract
  • Short Form Contract

Health and social care

The government has announced an interim delivery plan outlining 21 actions to improve understanding, research and care for those living with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.

Children's services

An Ofsted press release reveals they have issued new guidance warning against the placement of vulnerable children in unregistered and illegal children's homes.

Social enterprise

Record year for Social Enterprise UK's Buy Social Corporate Challenge. Social Enterprise UK reports that £99m was spent with social enterprise suppliers this year, marking the best year of the 7-year scheme, which runs to support big companies bringing social enterprises into their supply chains. You can read the programme's impact report here.

Education

Higher Education

An Office for Students press release shows that this year's National Student Survey shows a 71.5% student response rate on their experiences of higher education. Read the full survey here.

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