Information law specialist Caroline Redhead looks at how public authorities handle frivolous freedom of information requests. 

In this term's education law update Burnetts' specialist education lawyers conclude the Discrimination by Association feature from our last briefing, as well as explaining the new powers to remove under-performing teachers, the proposed HE and FE Codes of Practice relating to the Equality Act 2010 and the impact of the Public Equality Duty. Last of all, we take a look at website cookie compliance as the Information Commissioner's enforcement holiday comes to an end.

In Part 1 of this article I expressed the view that direct discrimination by reason of disability could occur even where the disability is not that of the person who is being treated less favourably, but instead is an attribute of someone associated with that person, e.g. their disabled child (“discrimination by association”).

Thus, it is not lawful to treat someone less favourably in their application for a place merely because they have a disabled child any more than it is lawful to refuse a person a place merely because they themselves have a disability.

We have looked at the changing picture with regard to cookies’ compliance in our monthly InfoLaw updates. Our views on this important topic are collated here, as we enter the countdown to the end of the “enforcement holiday”. We understand from our clients in both HE and FE that this is a topic of interest to the sector and it is an issue worth watching as website operators look ever more closely at what might (and might not) be acceptable going forward.

The Public Equality Duty came into force on 5 April 2011.  It effectively replaced the previous equality duties which related only to disability, race and gender and sought to introduce a wider duty with less of an administrative burden on public bodies.

The Equality Duty is a duty on all public bodies, which includes institutions of further and higher education, requiring them to consider the needs of all individuals in their day-to-day work – in sharing policy, delivering services and in relation to their own employees.

Following the introduction of the Equality Act 2010, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been tasked with completing a consultation with a view to preparing Codes of Practice to assist institutions and businesses in their aim to be compliant with the Equality Act.  In order to assist Further and Higher Education providers, the Commission is drafting the Code of Practice in Further and Higher Education.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has announced new powers that will allow head teachers to effectively remove an under-performing teacher within a term.  The new measures are considered to be in response to growing criticism of the fact that current procedures have only seen 17 employees struck off in the past decade.

In thie month's employment law e-bulletin, solicitor Hazel Phillips provides an update on holidays and holiday requests, in the light of  the Olympics, the Jubilee holidays and Easter. 

Spring is in the air, the Easter holidays will soon be no more than a fading memory – it’s the perfect time for most people to start planning the next big break but what rights do they have?

In this month's E-Legal: What's happening on World IP Day, Absence webinar now online & EU data proposals.