Top 10 Government & Public Sector Headlines from UK Last week the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill completed its passage through the House of Commons. The UK government has made a dramatic U-turn on proposed measures to tackle Internet pirates who illegally download films and music from the net. The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has published its long awaited preliminary guidance on the application of the public procurement rules to development agreements between public bodies and developers. In June 2009, the UK government published the Digital Britain Report, setting out an ambitious set of plans intended to secure the UK’s position as a leader in the global digital economy. The key theme through this newsletter is one of planning ahead. We cover a range of different issues of critical importance to the future of registered providers of social housing (RPs), all of which will require investment of time by management to ensure that potential adverse consequences are minimised. The recent selection of Rio de Janeiro as host city for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games just underlines what many have being saying for some time now: that Brazil has truly arrived as a power on the international stage. The government has appointed the first Identity Commissioner. Sir Joseph Pilling took up his role on 1 October. The Planning Act 2008 gives local authorities a much greater say in applications for national significant infrastructure project authorisations (except the few cases where they would have decided the applications, of course). This article looks at the points at which local authorities will get involved. In July this year we reported that NAM, the biggest oil and gas operator in the Netherlands had obtained from the European Commission a full exemption from the public procurement rules, which require contracts to be put out for competitive tender, in relation to oil and gas exploration and production activities in the Netherlands. This article summarises the provisions of the Planning Act 2008 that introduce a new regime for the authorisation of nationally significant infrastructure projects in the UK. | 
