Re T (Accommodation by Local Authority)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1995 |
| Date | 1995 |
| Year | 1995 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
JOHNSON, J
Local authority – duty to provide accommodation for child in need – child having left unsatisfactory home – living with new family – child applying to be accommodated by local authority – application refused as local authority had been providing support under s 17 of the Children Act 1989 – whether such past support justified refusal of provision of accommodation.
The child, a girl, was born in 1976. Her upbringing was tragic. In 1991 she escaped from her inadequate background and found a good home with a married couple. In July 1992 the child applied to be accommodated by the local authority. The objective was that the local authority would place the child with the married couple and pay them a fostering allowance. Her application was rejected. As a result the child complained and the local authority's complaints review panel upheld her complaint. The matter then fell to be considered by the director of social services. He concluded that the child's welfare would not be likely to be seriously prejudiced if the local authority did not provide her with accommodation.
The child applied for judicial review of the decision of the director of social services.
Held – granting the application: In matters such as this it was the local authority, not the court, which was to judge the facts. It was not for the court to monitor the actions of local authorities, save in exceptional circumstances, for example, where there had been a mistake as to the applicable law or unreasonableness in the Wednesbury sense. In the present case the local authority had been exercising their authority under s 17 of the Children Act 1989 to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child and to promote the upbringing of the child by her family, "family" in this case including the married couple with whom the child was living. The director of social services had erred when, in reaching his decision, he was satisfied that the past provision of support under s 17 made it unlikely that the child's welfare would be seriously prejudiced if she was not provided with accommodation. The focus of attention should have been on the future and, at the time he made his decision, the director of social services did not consider the likelihood of the local authority exercising their powers under s 17 to a sufficient degree to avoid serious prejudice to the child's welfare in the future. In exercising their discretion under s 20(3) of the 1989 Act to provide accommodation for a child, a local authority should look at all the circumstances of the case. The powers and duties under s 17 should not be excluded; however, because those...
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