8.52R (Alloway) v Bromley LBC [2004] EWHC 2108 (Admin), (2005) 8 CCLR 61
Services may be provided pending completion of a re-assessment even in cases where there have been prior assessments
Facts: Mr Alloway was a 19-year-old man who was autistic and suffered from learning disabilities. Bromley’s community care assessment concluded that he should be placed at Hesley Village and College. However, the Council then purported to place him at a cheaper option at Robinia Care. However, Bromley did not assert that its decision-making was affected by, or justified by, resources considerations.
Judgment: Crane J quashed this decision and said this at paragraphs 80–82:
80. I say in parenthesis that if any of the facilities mentioned can be urged to keep open the offers made, then that would certainly be desirable and the court’s view about that can be conveyed to them.
81. I note in passing that it would be open to the defendant, if it so wished, to decide that a new assessment was required in all the circumstances, and that it needed to act on a temporary basis under section 47, subsection (5) and subsection (6). A temporary placement could be made in those circumstances. But that, is one of the matters that I simply bring to the local authority’s attention.
82. It seems to me, and it is difficult to reach a conclusion about the best way ahead, so far as remedy is concerned, that the only remedy I need to grant is the quashing of the two decisions, if that is what they are, which I have mentioned. It does not seem to me, at the moment, that any declaration is required. In my view the judgment will speak for itself and, subject to counsel’s submissions, I would propose merely to make an order quashing the decisions made so far and to leave the judgment to speak rather than to grant declarations. The other remedies sought I refuse.
Nature of an assessment