Jane Oldham

Jane practises principally in public and administrative law and has wide experience of judicial review litigation.

She has practised also in commercial law and has particular experience in cases at the intersection of these areas, such as the Interest Rate Swap litigation between banks and local authorities, information law disputes concerning commercial matters, public procurement, European Regional Development Fund disputes, restitution claims arising from ultra vires activity, and litigation about wrongful trading through companies in which local authorities have interests.

She acts for national, local and private bodies. Subject matter includes utilities, civil aviation, higher and further education (including funding), national parks, broadcasting, health service (health authorities’ proposed financial arrangements, hospital closures, pharmacies, dentists’ and GPs’ contracts with health bodies), museums galleries and film bodies, bodies regulating professions including the legal profession, police bodies.

Recent work includes:

• Tribunal dispute about disclosure of information on VIP Fast Lane procurement of PPE during Covid
• Advising on legality of proposed pilot scheme for third party use of housing benefit personal data to identify families who may be vulnerable to defaulting on rent and experiencing vulnerabilities and isolation.
• Successfully challenging a decision concerning health care of people in police custody.
• Advising on public law aspects of a transport app.
• Advising a national public body on participation in a nine-figure bond.
• Acting in a JR challenge to the use of isolation booths in a school.
• Resisting a JR challenge to an urban healthy streets project.
• Advising on vires, procurement and state aid aspects of a proposed transaction between a public body and a private investor to finance installation of electric car charging points.

Other public law litigation includes acting in a 2018 JR challenge to a school’s haircut policy (prohibition of dreadlocks), representing solicitor claimants in four of the many procurement challenges in 2016 to the Lord Chancellor’s procurement of two-tier criminal legal aid contracting (the challenge resulted in the government withdrawing the entire procurement); a 2015 Supreme Court decision about declaratory relief and costs in judicial review where an error of law has been found but no relief given by the lower court; a 2015 decision about delegation of power and the scope of DPP v Haw and the Carltona principle; and judicial reviews of some of the earliest Council Tax Support Schemes and of the 2012 English GCSE Awards.

Commercial judicial review: see Jane’s public, local government, information and public procurement law pages.

Jane has particular experience in cases at the intersection of public and commercial law, such as the Interest Rate Swap litigation between banks and local authorities, European Regional Development Fund disputes, information law disputes concerning commercial matters, restitution claims arising from ultra vires activity, public procurement, and litigation about wrongful trading through companies in which local authorities have interests.

Jane has been instructed extensively for and against public authorities and for the Information Commissioner on GDPR, DPA, Freedom of Information Act and EIR issues. She has acted in both Information Tribunal (over 30 cases, see selection below) and High Court matters. She has a strong record on behalf of her clients of responding to ICO investigations effectively.

Recent work includes:

• GDPR issues.
• Controversial subject access requests.
• Protection of commercial interests in the FOIA and EIR fields. Scope of duties in respect of a data breach (student personal data).
• DPA duties in the context of disciplinary action by professional regulatory bodies. Disputes about release of reports in the regulatory sphere.

She has been on the Information Commissioner’s List of Counsel and has contributed to the Information Law Reports.

Jane has also advised and appeared in collateral interventions in proceedings in which disclosure issues have been raised. For example the challenge to the lawfulness of the government’s policy concerning the detention of children of unsuccessful asylum-seekers pending their deportation, in which she intervened successfully for a Local Children’s Safeguarding Board concerning the disclosure of a Serious Case Review about detained children (Suppiah v Sec State for Home Dept and Others [2011] EWHC 2 (Admin)).

Jane acts in matters concerning all levels of educational bodies. Recent education work includes:

• JR challenge to closure of nurseries
• Information dispute about a school’s extra-curricular diversity and inclusion club.
• JR challenge to use of isolation booths in a school.
• Complex reference before the Office for Students concerning a university’s research funding.
• Acting for university resisting claw-back of European Regional Development Funding for research project with commercial sector.
• Advising university on scope of duties in respect of a data breach (student personal data). Advising on a university’s proposal to sub-contract its duties under the Equality Act 2010.
• Advising whether a university can give financial assistance, for the payment of a statutory penalty, to its indebted student union.

Examples of other work include:

• JR challenge to a school’s haircut policy prohibiting wearing hair in dreadlocks (2018).
• Acting for the council in a Supreme Court hearing in 2015 in a matter originating from an Education Act 1996 challenge to funding cuts in youth services.
• Advising in disputes about liabilities for school deficits and transfers of property (including special needs facilities used by several schools) on conversion to academy status.
• Issues arising from regulatory reports about further and higher education bodies. The judicial review of the 2012 English GCSEs.
• Academies’ admissions arrangements and admissions appeals.
• Funding disputes between universities and affiliated bodies.
• A challenge to a decision to fund closure of a college and transfer its courses to a different institution.
• Appropriate remedy for use of incorrect assessment criteria in student examination.
• Freedom of information in the education context.

ERDF Funding disputes.

Human rights issues arise across Jane’s specialisms.

Jane has been instructed extensively for and against public authorities and for the Information Commissioner on Freedom of Information Act, EIR, GDPR and DPA issues and has acted in both Information Tribunal (over 30 cases, see selection below) and High Court matters. She has a strong record on behalf of her clients of participating in or responding to ICO investigations effectively.

She has been on the Information Commissioner’s List of Counsel and has contributed to the Information Law Reports.

Frequently instructed in relation to protection of commercial interests in the FOIA, EIR and GDPR/DPA fields. She also has experience of controversial subject access requests, data sharing, DPA duties in the context of disciplinary action by professional regulatory bodies, and disputes about release of reports in the regulatory sphere.

Recent work includes:

• Breckland DC v Information Commissioner (2023) UKFTT 103 (GRC) on commercial confidentiality exemption and the relationship between EIR rights and the statutory rights of electors and auditors to information (2023).
• FTT appeal on Covid VIP Fast Lane PPE procurement information (2022).
• FOI dispute between school and parents objecting to a diversity and inclusion activity (2022).
• FTT appeal on disclosure of names of recipients (including foster carers) of payments for outsourced childcare (2022).
• FTT appeal on “neither confirm nor deny” FOIA exemption (2022).
• Pharmacists Defence Union v NHS Business Services Limited (EA/2019/0239) (FOI) (2022)
• Advising on disclosure of personal data of drivers involved in car accidents.
• ICO investigation into use of personal data to provide automatic opt-in for unwanted commercial discount scheme.
• Advising university on scope of duties in respect of a data breach (student personal data).
• ICO investigation into EIR dispute about disclosure of verbatim responses to a public consultation.
• ICO investigation into EIR dispute about disclosure of a hospital’s information about the fire safety of the building materials used in its construction.

Jane has also advised and appeared in collateral interventions in proceedings in which disclosure issues have been raised. For example the challenge to the lawfulness of the government’s policy concerning the detention of children of unsuccessful asylum-seekers pending their deportation, in which she intervened successfully for a Local Children’s Safeguarding Board concerning the disclosure of a Serious Case Review about detained children (Suppiah v Sec State for Home Dept and Others [2011] EWHC 2 (Admin)).

Jane advises and appears regularly in cases at all levels concerning local government.

She is Chambers UK 2023’s top-ranked junior at the London Bar.

Recent work includes:

• Breckland DC v Information Commissioner (2023) UKFTT 103 (GRC) on commercial confidentiality exemption and the relationship between EIR rights and the statutory rights of electors and auditors to information.
• Closure of nurseries
• Use of interest rate swaps
• Local election law problems
• Disputes arising from closure of leisure centres during lockdown
• BID disputes arising from impact of lockdown on businesses
• Advice and advocacy concerning innovative investment schemes.
• Issues arising from public consultations.
• Public sector equality duty issues.
• Governance issues (including lawfulness of certain council appointments).
• Advice on an authority’s regeneration scheme (vires).
• Councillors’ rights to see information.
• Councillors’ conduct.
• Advising on dispute between fire authority and local authority as to calculation of precept.
• Auditor’s investigation of money spent by authority on its regeneration scheme.
• Auditor’s investigation concerning whether an authority sold land in breach of its section 123 LGA 1972 consideration duty.
• Whether a local authority had to repay penalties it had imposed ultra vires, and if so to what extent.
• Whether a local authority’s proposed scheme engaged procurement rules.
• Whether a local authority’s policy on applications for discretionary reductions of council tax was lawful.

Examples of the breadth of Jane’s local government practice include:

• Vires.
• Budget setting.
• Council tax (including council tax reduction schemes).
• Governance (including changing from one form to another).
• Monitoring issues.
• Public sector equality duty (particularly in the context of spending cuts).
• Consultation.
• Local authority interaction with commercial and third sector bodies.
• Testing the scope of the Localism Act general power of competence.
• Issues arising from large capital projects undertaken by public bodies.
• District auditor investigations and public interest reports (one involving proceedings about £120 million of challenged expenditure of public funds) for both local authority and auditing body.
• Restitution claims arising from ultra vires activity.
• Capital finance.
• Public procurement.
• FOIA and Environmental Information Regulations.
• Data protection and GDPR (including sensitive data sharing with other agencies), subject access requests, release of reports on social care matters and serious case reviews.
• Education.
• Disputes with central government about grants.
• Local authority funding disputes with health bodies including resisting NHS claims for restitution of continuing health funding payments.
• Disputes about exemptions and discounts from business rates.
• BID levies.
• Applications to list assets of community value – including listing, for the first time, an entire mountain, Blencathra.
• Disputes with transport bodies eg TfL.
• Private landlord licensing schemes.
• Social impact bonds.
• Successfully resisting DCLG attempts to claw back ERDF funding.
• Service-sharing agreements with other councils.
• Provision of services to non-council entities.
• Representing local authorities in mediations.

Jane has particular experience in cases at the intersection of local government/public and commercial issues, such as the Interest Rate Swap litigation between banks and local authorities, public procurement, European Regional Development Fund disputes, information law disputes concerning commercial matters, restitution claims arising from ultra vires activity, and litigation about wrongful trading through companies in which local authorities have interests.

Jane has represented local authorities in mediations.

Jane has advised both public authorities and tenderers on a wide range of procurement problems at all stages of tender processes. She has a strong record of enabling them, respectively, to deter proposed challenges, and to persuade public authorities to recommence tendering procedures.

Examples include:

• Successful challenge to contract decision concerning health care of people in custody.
• Acting for a university challenging claw-back of ERDF funds on grounds of alleged breach of procurement rules.
• Advising on procurement aspects of a proposed transaction between a public body and a private investor to finance installation of electric car charging points.
• Advising local authorities whether proposals engage public procurement rules.

Other cases include: acting in 2015-2016 for the solicitor claimants in four of the High Court procurement challenges seeking to set aside the government’s procurement of two-tier criminal legal aid contracting (the procurement, said to be among the largest and most complex tender processes undertaken by central government, was then abandoned by the Lord Chancellor in January 2016); acting for a trade union in its judicial review challenge to NHS PCTs’ proposed outsourcing of their family health services.

Has acted successfully for grant recipients resisting government attempts, on procurement grounds, to claw back European Regional Development Fund funding.

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