Chapter 15 Notes on key legislation

Contracts

Section 6: Note s 6(3)(b), which defines “public authorities” (which act unlawfully if they breach Convention rights, unless primary legislation requires it) to include ‘any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature’. But s 6(5) provides that ‘In relation to a particular act, a person is not a public authority by virtue only of subsection (3)(b) if the nature of the act is private.’

s 1 provides that ‘A local authority has power to do anything that individuals generally may do’, as long as it is not prevented by a ‘limitation’ applying before the Act commenced (s 2(2)). This provision makes it impossible to challenge new initiatives of local authorities (including new types of commercial transactions) merely on the ground that there is no express statutory authorization.
The Act abolished the ‘Standards Board for England’ (set up by the Local Government Act 2000, to investigate complaints of breaches of local authorities’ codes of conduct for council members), and created new criminal offences for failure to disclose interests (s 34).

Abolished the Audit Commission (a public body that audited local authorities), and repealed the Audit Commission Act.
Replaced the Audit Commission Scheme with a requirement for local authorities to keep adequate accounts (s 3), and to contract out for audits by private companies, with rules for the process of appointing private auditors.