R (Manchester City Council) v St Helens Metropolitan Borough Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Sir Anthony May,Lord Justice Scott Baker,Lord Justice Lloyd |
| Judgment Date | 06 November 2009 |
| Neutral Citation | [2009] EWCA Civ 1348 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 06 November 2009 |
| Docket Number | Case No: C1/2008/3079 |
[2009] EWCA Civ 1348
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
(MR JUSTICE DOBBS)
Before: President of the Queen's Bench Division
(Sir Anthony May)
Lord Justice Scott Baker
and
Lord Justice Lloyd
Case No: C1/2008/3079
Mr S Knafler (instructed by Manchester CC Legal Services) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
Miss J Richards (instructed by Messrs Weightmans LLP) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
Sir Anthony May:
As I said in the first sentence of my judgment in litigation closely related to the appeal now before the court (see [2008] EWCA Civ 931), it is not, in my view, satisfactory when two publicly funded public authorities engage in expensive litigation to decide which of them should pay for the care in the home of a woman whose mental and psychological conditions require constant and expensive care. In the end, the money for the care and the money for the litigation is all coming out of the same purse (see also the judgment of Scott Baker LJ to the same effect in paragraph 39 of the report of that case).
Introduction.
This appeal, with permission of Elias LJ, against the refusal by Dobbs J on 12 December 2008 to give Manchester City Council permission to bring judicial review proceedings, raises a single issue which may be quite shortly stated. I say this having carefully read and considered Mr Knafler's 34-page closely typed skeleton submission on behalf of the applicant/appellant and having listened to his well structured and well presented oral submissions.
To be fair to Mr Knafler he subdivides the short single issue into three short subdivisions. Since this is, in the first instance, essentially a permission application, this judgment will try to be reasonably short. Dobbs J correctly set herself the same task. Her judgment may be found at [2008] EWHC 3510 Admin and may be referred to as necessary.
The facts.
The judge set out a summary of the facts as follows in paragraph 3 of her judgment:
“3. PE is 36 or perhaps now 37 years old and has a multiple personality disorder. She was taken into care. A very high level of care is required because of this condition. The annual figure is substantial making it possibly the most expensive care package in the country. PE's care arrangements had been funded by St Helens, as PE lived within the borough. In July 1999 PE moved to Manchester. In April 2000 she moved to a property rented in her own name, also in the Manchester area, the lease being taken out in November or December 1999. St Helens carried out an assessment in January 2000, in which it identified the preferred care package as supported living in Manchester. St Helens provided the funding thereafter, although it did seek to persuade Manchester to make housing benefit available to PE, which Manchester declined to do. Accordingly, St Helens met those costs as well.
4. In September 2005, St Helens issued best interest proceedings in the Family Division of the High Court, declarations were being sought as to PE's future care. An assessment of need under Section 47 [of the 1990 Act] was undertaken. Experts were instructed and produced reports for the court. Those experts agreed that PE should continue to reside in her current property supported by a package of care. All parties to the proceedings, including the Official Solicitor, agreed that this was the appropriate way forward, namely that PE's future lay in the Manchester area in her current property. Moreover, PE had indicated that she wished to remain at the current address.
5. The three experts advised on the need for greater involvement of the services in the Manchester area, which would afford PE the same opportunity as any other Manchester resident. The experts also took the view that it was not in PE's best interest to retain an ongoing relationship with St Helens. This was explained to Manchester by St Helens in a letter dated 14 September 2006. The view expressed by St Helens was that PE was now “ordinarily resident” in Manchester and that legal responsibility should be passed to Manchester. In the event that Manchester was not willing to accept legal liability, St Helens asked Manchester to manage the case on its behalf. Regular chasing letters were sent by St Helens seeking a reply to that letter of 14 September. Manchester eventually responded by letter dated 27 December 2006, indicating that it would rigorously defend any attempts to pass responsibility to Manchester City Council. It referred to unspecified letters without reference to date, in which it was said that St Helens had confirmed its acceptance of its responsibility for the costs. I have only been able to find one letter in the bundle, which is dated 8 October 2004, in which St Helens, pursuing payment of housing benefit to PE, says:
'Whilst St Helens Council have accepted that [she] is “Ordinarily Resident” in terms of the National Assistance Act 1948 and do not dispute the support charges consequent to that, the Council do not accept responsibility for the payment of core rent for her residence in Manchester.'
Manchester, in the letter of 27 December 2006, did not accept that PE was ordinarily resident in Manchester for the purposes of the Act. It also declined to assist in the management of the case, citing insufficient resources.
6. In the light of Manchester's stated position, St Helens applied to the Secretary of State by virtue of the statutory scheme under Section 32(3) of the 1948 Act for a determination as to whether PE was ordinarily resident in the Manchester area. There was no objection taken to this approach and submissions were made to the Secretary of State by both parties.
7. On 18 April 2008, the Secretary of State determined that PE had been ordinarily resident in the Manchester area since April 2000. That decision has not been challenged by the claimant or the Official Solicitor. Having read the determination, I am not surprised. In the light of the Secretary of State's determination, St Helens made the decision to stop providing and funding any care services for PE as of 31 May 2008, and it communicated that decision to Manchester in a letter dated 30 April 2008. Manchester has agreed to make provision for PE in the interim on the basis that St Helens repay the costs if it should have retained responsibility.”
Manchester challenge in these proceedings St Helens' decision of 30 April 2008 that they would stop funding PE's care. They were refused permission to bring judicial review proceedings by Mr Robin Purchas QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge on 20 October 2008. Dobbs J refused them permission after an oral hearing. Manchester had filed their claim a week or ten days outside the three month maximum period for doing so in Civil Procedure Rule 54.5, after the grounds to make the claim first arose. Each of the Administrative Court judges refused to grant the necessary extension of time, holding that there was no good explanation for the failure to comply with the time limit. Manchester appealed against Dobbs' J decision with the permission of Elias LJ. I propose to address the substance of the matter reasonably briefly first.
Manchester's essential point is that St Helens assumed a duty to provide PE's very expensive care package following their assessment on 4 January 2000, at a time when PE was, as the Secretary of State has now determined, ordinarily resident in Manchester; and St Helens are stuck with this unless there has been a relevant change of circumstances, which there has not been. This contention has to be judged with reference to the relevant statutory provisions, which I shall shortly refer to, which bear upon the now unchallenged decision of the Secretary of State that PE is ordinarily resident in the Manchester area and has been since April 2000.
In summary, the Secretary of State found on the basis of expert evidence that, although PE may not have the capacity to make decisions about complex matters relating to the management of her care, it was likely that she did have the capacity to make decisions about where she should live. The Secretary of State found that PE had voluntarily adopted the Manchester area as her home. She therefore became ordinarily resident, either on 21 December 1999 when she signed the tenancy agreement for 272 Kings Road, or when she moved into the property in April 2000. The Secretary of State rejected the submissions of Manchester that St Helens retained responsibility for PE's care on the basis that it had based PE in the Manchester area. The Secretary of State further rejected the contention that St Helens, having decided to provide care services to PE, was estopped from repudiating responsibility for PE on the basis of its own placement decision. The Secretary of State found that St Helens had made no placement of PE because PE has, or must be treated as having, the capacity to decide where she wishes to live.
Mr Knafler, on behalf of Manchester, says that the Secretary of State's powers, under Section 32(3) of the 1948 Act, is to determine the question of a person's ordinary residence and that it does not extend to stipulating the legal and statutory consequences of that decision.
The decision was communicated to the parties on 18 April 2008. As Dobbs J set out, St Helens communicated their decision to stop funding PE's care on 30 April 2008.
The statutory provisions.
Section 21(1) of the National...
To continue reading
Request your trial