The duty of care of a government regulatory body to individuals among the public it serves is now well established by case law. In Anns v. London Borough of Merton, [1978] A.C. 728, a local government body was found liable to a private claimant for negligence in enforcing building standards. The two-step test established in Anns required, first an analysis of whether there was a sufficiently close or proximate relationship between the public body and the private claimant to be able to reasonably forecast that negligence by the regulatory body would cause damage to the claimant. The second consideration is whether there are any competing, often policy based, reasons why the public body should not be made liable.
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