Ms Cecile Jagoo v Bristol City Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Holroyde |
| Judgment Date | 27 April 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 926 (Admin) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Date | 27 April 2017 |
| Docket Number | Case No: CO/5387/2016 |
[2017] EWHC 926 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
ON APPEAL FROM THE VALUATION TRIBUNAL FOR ENGLAND
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Holroyde
Case No: CO/5387/2016
Mr Christopher Milsom (instructed by Avon and Bristol Law Centre) for the Appellant
Mr George Mackenzie (instructed by Bristol City Council Legal Department) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 1 st February 2017
Approved Judgment
Ms Cecile Jagoo ("the Appellant") lives in Bristol. Bristol City Council ("the Respondent") is the statutory billing authority for council tax purposes in that city. The Appellant is a student of the University of Exeter, studying for an M Phil/ Ph D in Education. She has the misfortune to suffer from dyslexia, and as a result her studies take her longer than they would if she did not suffer from that disability. The Appellant believes that she is entitled to a student's exemption from liability to council tax. She asserted that entitlement when the Respondent assessed her property as liable to council tax, and sought payment from her accordingly. By a letter dated 15 th January 2016 the Respondent's Local Taxation officer confirmed that in his view the Appellant was not entitled to a student exemption. On 24 th June 2016 the Appellant's appeal against that decision to the Valuation Tribunal for England ("VTE") was refused. She now appeals to the High Court, contending that the decision of the Respondent (upheld by the VTE) was wrong in law.
I am grateful to both Mr Milsom (for the Appellant) and Mr Mackenzie (for the Respondent) for their written and oral submissions.
I can deal briefly with a preliminary point which was raised at the hearing before me. The appeal is brought pursuant to regulation 43 of the Valuation Tribunal for England (Council Tax and Rating Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2009. So far as material for present purposes, that regulation provides:
"43.—Appeals to the High Court
(1) An appeal shall lie to the High Court on a question of law arising out of a decision or order which is given or made by the VTE on an appeal under section 16 of the 1992 Act or the CT Regulations…
(2) Subject to paragraph (3), an appeal under paragraph (1) may be dismissed if it is not made within four weeks of the date on which notice is given of the decision or order that is the subject of the appeal…
…
(4) The High Court may confirm, vary, set aside, revoke or remit the decision or order, and may make any order the VTE could have made."
The appeal was brought by the Appellant, at that stage acting in person, and was not validly commenced until more than four weeks after the date of the VTE's decision. The Appellant had however made clear her wish to appeal, albeit that she did so by an inappropriate procedure, and there was no prejudice to the Respondent as a result of her delay in commencing the correct procedure. It is unnecessary to go into the details of the submissions which were made as to how the court should exercise the discretion granted by the regulation. Both parties submitted, and I accept, that the test set out in Denton v TH White [2014] 1 WLR 3926 was not directly applicable to the circumstances of this appeal. It suffices to say that Mr Milsom advanced a number of reasons why the appeal should be heard, and Mr Mackenzie very fairly indicated that the Respondent adopted a neutral stance. It was in my view clear that this was an appropriate case in which to allow the Appellant to proceed, and I therefore permitted her to do so.
I should also add, by way of preliminary, that it was common ground during the hearing that the relevant evidence was in a number of respects at best incomplete, and at worst absent; and the Respondent argued that the evidence put forward by the Appellant was insufficient for her to be able to succeed in her appeal. It was however also common ground that the issue of law which arises in this appeal is one which may affect other cases, and I heard full argument on it. Moreover, neither the Local Taxation officer nor the VTE reached their decisions on the basis of a detailed analysis of factual issues: rather, they tacitly accepted the Appellant's assertions as to the facts, but rejected her claim for an exemption on the basis of their interpretation of the relevant statutory provisions. In those circumstances, and notwithstanding the evidential deficiencies, it is in my view appropriate that I should decide the issue of statutory interpretation which lies at the heart of the appeal.
After those initial observations, I turn to the statutory framework within which this appeal is brought.
The statutory framework: liability to council tax
By section 4(1) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992,
"Council tax shall be payable in respect of any dwelling which is not an exempt dwelling."
The classes of dwelling which will constitute an exempt dwelling for this purpose are listed in the Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) Order 1992. By regulation 3, Class N a dwelling is exempt if the only occupier (or, as in this case, the only occupier and her dependant young child) is a student. By regulation 2, "student" means a person falling within the definition of student in paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the 1992 Act. That paragraph empowers the Secretary of State to assign a meaning to the word "student"; and the Secretary of State has done so in the Council Tax (Discount Disregards) Order 1992. The terms of that Order – hereafter referred to for convenience as "the 1992 Order" – lie at the heart of this appeal.
In material part, paragraph 4 of the 1992 Order defines "student" as meaning
"a person, who is to be regarded as –
…
(b) a person undertaking a full time course of education, by paragraphs 3 and 4 of [Schedule 1 to the Order]"
It is not necessary for me to set out the terms of paragraph 3 of Schedule 1 to the 1992 Order, which require a "student" to be enrolled with a "prescribed educational establishment" at the material times, because it is common ground that the requirements of that paragraph are fulfilled by the Appellant. The issue between the parties is as to the correct interpretation of paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 1 to the 1992 Order, which provides as follows:
"4.—
(1) A full-time course of education is, subject to subparagraphs (2) and (3), one—
(a) which subsists for at least one academic year of the educational establishment concerned or, in the case of an educational establishment which does not have academic years, for at least one calendar year;
(b) which persons undertaking it are normally required by the educational establishment concerned to undertake periods of study, tuition or work experience (whether at premises of the establishment or otherwise) —
(i) of at least 24 weeks in each academic or calendar year (as the case may be) during which it subsists, and
(ii) which together amount in each such academic or calendar year to an average of at least 21 hours a week."
With respect to the draftsman, the wording of paragraph (b) is rather clumsy. It might have been preferable if that paragraph began
"in respect of which, persons undertaking it are normally required …"
It should be noted in passing that paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 to the 1992 Act requires an educational institution to supply on request a certificate containing such information as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State about a person who is following a course of education at that institution.
Before coming to the facts of the case, and the competing submissions as to the correct interpretation of paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 1 to the 1992 Order, it is convenient to set out the features of the equality legislation on which Mr Milsom relies.
The statutory framework: disability
By section 6 of the Equality Act 2010 –
"6 Disability
(1) A person (P) has a disability if—
(a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and
(b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse affect on P's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
(2) A reference to a disabled person is a reference to a person who has a disability."
By section 15 of that Act –
"15 Discrimination arising from disability
(1) A person (A) discriminates against a disabled person (B) if—
(a) A treats B unfavourably because of something arising in consequence of B's disability, and
(b) A cannot show that the treatment is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if A shows that A did not know, and could not have reasonably have been expected to know, that B had the disability."
Section 20 and 21 of the 2010 Act, so far as material, provide –
"20 Duty to make adjustments
(1) Where this Act imposes a duty to make reasonable adjustments on a person, this section, sections 21 and 22 and the applicable Schedule apply; and for those purposes, a person on whom the duty is imposed is referred to as A.
(2) The duty comprises the following three requirements.
(3) The first requirement is a requirement, where a provision, criterion or practice of A's puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage in relation to a relevant matter in comparison with persons who are not disabled, to take such steps as it is reasonable to have to take to avoid the disadvantage.
…
21 Failure to comply with duty
(1) A failure to comply with the first, second or third requirement is a failure to comply with a duty to make reasonable adjustments.
(2) A discriminates against a disabled person if A fails to comply with that duty in relation to that person."
Section 29, so far as relevant, provides –
"29 Provision of services etc.
(6) A person must not, in the exercise of a public function that is not...
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Shanmuganathan Sabesan v London Borough of Waltham Forest
...of regulation 21(2). There is no such specific mechanism in relation to regulation 43(2). 19 Mr Sawtell referred me to the case of Jagoo v Bristol City Council [2017] EWHC 926 (Admin), a decision of Mr Justice Holroyde (as he then was), which also concerned an appeal to the High Court unde......