Is it lawful to deliberately misrepresent the law possibly for financial gain?

[Artichokeleaves]

A major school toilets installer, issuing advice to schools that encourages them to install mixed sex toilets, has changed the text of the law in the guidance he issues to make it seem acceptable.

Schools are using this guidance, but it is a complete misrepresentation of the School Premises Regulations. He has written several articles for school resource websites. Can he be reported or sanctioned?

Following.

I have found this! But I have no legal knowledge ...

www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/misrepresentation-act-1967-aeB321x7SwFV

Schools are using this guidance, but it is a complete misrepresentation of the School Premises Regulations

Surely it's more worrying that schools are taking legal advice from toilet suppliers, if that's what's happening?

You may want to re post this on feminism chat making clear this is about mixed sex toilets - lots of knowledgeable people on that topic.

@LonginesPrime

Schools are using this guidance, but it is a complete misrepresentation of the School Premises Regulations

Surely it's more worrying that schools are taking legal advice from toilet suppliers, if that's what's happening?

Agree with @LonginesPrime

Surely schools/councils should be educating themselves

Thanks for responses so far - schools seem to be blindly trusting, I think many agencies assume that the suppliers know what they're talking about. It's about if there is any function or mechanism in law to hold a service provider/supplier accountable if they are knowingly giving incorrect advice which misrepresents the law, with the possibility this may be intentional for gain.

It is a criminal offence to engage in unfair advertising under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. You can report it to local trading standards officers and also the ASA and victims can sue for damages under late changes to those regulations.

Not convinced the regulations quoted by @Xenia apply as they are selling to schools, not consumers.

Very good point. I just checked and you are right.
In that case it is the business regs that came out at the same time
Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1276/contents/made - under those ones

"Advertising which is misleading is prohibited.
(2) Advertising is misleading which—
(a) in any way, including its presentation, deceives or is likely to deceive the traders to whom it is addressed or whom it reaches; and by reason of its deceptive nature, is likely to affect their economic behaviour"

I think it would mislead schools in the example on the thread so those business regulations could apply. Again it is a criminal offence. You can be fined or go to jail for 2 years.

Thank you, that's really helpful!

Could you email the council with your concerns?

Obviously, it's completely wrong of them to misquote the law to induce people to buy, but I think the building company's defence would be that no reasonable person would expect a school to rely solely on a toilet salesperson telling them the law has changed and consequently enter into an expensive contract using school funds and commence disruptive building work without first performing their own due diligence around the salesperson's spiel.

Assuming that the only issue here is misinformation and that schools aren't actually changing their toilets because the toilet salesperson told them to, I think the best course of action is to contact the school resource websites where he has stated this and tell them that they are misquoting the law and misleading schools.

I think the main issue here for schools is caused by the resource websites not fact-checking the law before publishing this company's articles. The company can say "the law is that everyone must buy a toilet from us now" if they like, as the law can be misquoted and it's clearly not intended to be legal advice, but the websites are at fault for promoting misinformation, assuming they're the kind of resources that schools would be expected to rely on for that information.

It's kind of like the Stonewall/BBC thing - Stonewall can say what they like and advise people to do something different from what the law says if they want to (which is their job as they lobby to change laws) but it's the BBC's and NHS's responsibility to do their own due diligence on what the law actually says, instead of relying on a charity with an obvious bias to advise them on how to apply the law as it currently stands. It's not Stonewall's fault - it's the public bodies who didn't do their due diligence and check the actual law they had a legal duty to adhere to.