UK Offence Report

Transitional and savings provisions

article 3(1)(b) of The Welfare Reform (2007 Act) (Commencement No. 6 and Transitional and Savings Provisions) Order (Northern Ireland) 2008

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

b Article 7 (under which

a person is guilty of an offence if he makes an unauthorised disclosure of information).

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach article 3(1)(b)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. On these words an offence is committed where a person makes an unauthorised disclosure of information).
  2. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Welfare Reform (2007 Act) (Commencement No. 6 and Transitional and Savings Provisions) Order (Northern Ireland) 2008.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
7 August 2008
In force from
Not determined
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

Article 2 of this Order provides for the coming into operation of the following provisions of the Welfare Reform Act (Northern Ireland) 2007— section 39 (information relating to certain benefits), for the purpose only of authorising the making of orders or regulations, on 8th August 2008 and for all other purposes, together with consequential repeals, on 1st September 2008; section 40 (unlawful disclosure of certain information), on 1st September 2008; and sections 46 and 47 (widowed mother’s allowance and widowed parent’s allowance) and consequential repeals, on 7th October 2008. Article 3 makes transitional and savings provisions— to provide that where persons have been supplied with information pursuant to Article 6 of the Housing Support Services (Northern Ireland) Order 2002— under Article 6(3) and (4) of that Order they will continue to be permitted to supply that information to persons providing housing support services; and under Article 7 of that Order it will remain an offence for them, in certain circumstances, to disclose that information without lawful authority (paragraphs (1) and (2)); and for the continuing application of sections 37 and 39A of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992 relating to entitlement to widowed mother’s allowance and widowed parent’s allowance for certain cases (paragraph (3)).

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source