… But one has to differentiate between what are needs and what are the services to meet those needs because, as the case of Barry, which I have already cited, makes clear, financial considerations cannot enter into the assessment of needs whereas they can enter into the question as to how those needs are to be met. Once the needs have been established, then they must be met and cost cannot be an excuse for failing to meet them. The manner in which they are met does not have to be the most expensive. The Council is perfectly entitled to look to see what is the cheapest way for them to meet the needs which are specified.

In the context of section 2 of the 1970 Act, it is not always easy to differentiate between what is a need and what is merely the means by which such need can be met. I say that because if one looks at the judgments in the Barry case one sees that Swinton Thomas LJ at page 439 pointed out that some of the matters in section 2(1) of the 1970 Act may be regarded as themselves needs as opposed to the means of meeting the needs. For example, he says, if the need is a provision for the TV set (that is within section 2(1)(b)) that need can be met by the provision of a new or a second-hand set. It may be said that the need is a need for contact with the outside world in some form or another and that the television set provides that contact. Thus the television set is the means whereby the need is to be met. If one returns to the wording of section 2, it talks about the ‘making of arrangements for all or any of the following matters in order to meet the needs of that person’ which on the whole suggests that one is looking to the matters set out in (a) to (h) more in terms of the way in which the needs are to be met rather than the needs themselves, although that is not necessarily an entire guide. So far as the circumstances of this case are concerned, it seems to me perfectly clear that the needs that have led to the question about the provision of a stair lift are the needs for the applicants to be able to get in and out of the premises. Those are the relevant needs. They can be met, as it seems to me, either by removing them to other premises where access is possible for them, which in the context of this case, would be ground floor premises, or adapting the existing premises to provide a stair lift.

It is, in my judgment, impossible to regard the provision of a stair lift at home as ‘the need’. In those circumstances, it is open to the local authority to reconsider the way in which those needs can be met provided that there has been no positive decision to meet them in a particular fashion. I say ‘provided there has been no positive decision’, but of course such a decision itself could itself be changed upon reconsideration. One must always bear in mind that it is the duty of the authority to meet the needs and that means to meet them as soon as is reasonably practical. It does mean that the authority is entitled to sit on things and debate with itself for a substantial period of time. Once they have identified after discussion the manner in which those needs are to be met, then the Act requires that they get on with it and meet those needs. But it seems to me that they are entitled to the flexibility as to how those needs are to be met.