R (Redcar and Cleveland Independent Providers Association and others) v Redcar and Cleveland BC (HHJ Gosnell): (1) decisions about what standard fees to pay care home providers were amenable to judicial review, by care home owners, (2) it was for the Court to decide whether a local authority had had “due regard” to the actual costs of providing care locally, as advised by LAC (2004) 20, although the decision ultimately made as to the level of standard fees was subject to challenge only on Wednesbury grounds, (3) the local authority in this case had not had “due regard” to the actual costs of providing care locally as, on a proper analysis of its decision-making, it had only had regard to the levels of fees payable in other local authority areas for that purpose. The authority did take into account certain other material relating to local costs, but only for the purpose of trying to avoid a judicial review. Click here for the judgment.
R (KA) v Essex CC [2013] EWHC 43 Admin (Mr Robin Purchas QC): the local authority was required to continue to support a destitute Nigerian family, under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, because although their applications for LTR in the UK had been refused (without there being a right of appeal), they had made a further application for LTR, and had stated that they would appeal any removal directions to the FTT, on Convention grounds that were not manifestly hopeless or abusive. Click here for the judgment.
R (Cornwall CC) v Secretary of State for Health and others [2012] EWHC 3739 Admin (Beatson J): the Secretary of State did not err in law in concluding that PH’s need for residential accommodation under section 21 of the NAA 1948 arose on his 18th birthday and that PH was ordinarily resident then in Cornwall, for the purposes of local authority responsibility, because, although he was physically resident elsewhere, PH lacked capacity to determine his place of residence, his parents and family lived in Cornwall and that was truly his “base”, given his frequent visits home and his parents’ important decision-making role in relation to him. The Court applied R v Waltham Forest LBC ex p Vale (25 February 1985). Click here for the judgment.
R (Iffat Naureen) v Salford CC [2012] EWCA Civ 1795 (Moore-Bick, Etherton, Jackson LJJ): the Judge had been entitled to decline to award costs against the local authority after the judicial review claim had become academic and it was not clear that the claimants would have succeeded (in establishing that they were entitled to residential accommodation). The fact that the claimants had secured interim relief did not mean that their substantive claim would have succeeded. Click here for the judgment.
In the matter of an application by DM [2012] NIQB 98 (Horner J): a Health and Social Services Trust had erred in law, when refusing to make direct payments, by not following the approach in R (KM) v Cambridgeshire CC [2012] UKSC 23. The Trust had been required to ask (a) what DM's needs were, (b) whether it was necessary to make arrangements for the provision of any services in order to meet those needs, (c) if so, the nature and extent of those services, (d) what was the reasonable cost of securing provision of those services. The Trust had not asked what M's needs were at the outset and had not carried out a detailed, up-to-date assessment. It seemed to have rolled up questions (b) and (c) and considered them together, taking into account its resources in deciding whether to provide services which it had previously considered necessary for DM. Furthermore, the trust had not asked question (d) and thus had not made any assessment of the costs. Click here for the judgment.
R (AJ) v Calderdale BC [2012] EWHC 3553 Admin (HHJ Pelling QC): it was not necessarily incompatible with regulation 4 of the Public Contract Regulations 2006 for service users, carers and/or family members to sit on evaluation panels that select successful bidders for supported living services. Click here for the judgment.
