9.86R v Islington LBC ex p Batantu (2001) 4 CCLR 445, QBD
A local authority remained under a duty to meet assessed needs despite the service user’s refusal of offered services
Facts: Mr Batantu was disabled and lived in over-crowded, unsuitable accommodation with his family. Islington assessed him as needing to be re-housed to more spacious, adapted accommodation but then simply referred his case to the housing department. Mr Batantu then refused offers of accommodation. Mr Batantu sought a judicial review of Islington’s failure to offer him ordinary accommodation under section 21 of the National Assistance Act 1948.
Judgment: Henriques J held that the assessment had given rise to a duty on Islington’s social services department; a single refusal by Mr Batantu to contemplate private rented accommodation, and a refusal to accept a three-bedroom flat in a different area, had not absolved Islington of its duty:
40. A single refusal in principle to contemplate private rented accommodation, post March this year, coupled with the refusal to accept a three-bedroom flat out of the area and with a number of unsuitable steps in March of 1999, between one mile and one-and-a-half miles away from their present home, cannot conceivably, in my judgment, absolve the respondents from their continuing duty to provide accommodation. It is perfectly easy to appreciate why the applicant would have chosen to decline the offer of private sector, short-let accommodation, and the applicant has not begun to stretch the duty to the point of willy-nilly.
41. The respondent continues in argument to assert that even if there is a duty, nevertheless, the respondent can do no more. The respondent most certainly can do more and must. It is significant that upon instructions, Mr Harrop-Griffiths asserted that his clients had not considered themselves under a duty to provide accommodation pursuant to section 21 between March of this year and the present moment. That is an unfortunate, albeit frank, concession, having regard to the clarity of the judgments of both Potter LJ and Forbes J in ex p Kujtim and ex p Tammadge respectively. The respondents most certainly can do more. They can buy accommodation and let it to the applicant by way of long lease, assuming all other efforts fail.
Comment: The decision in
Kujtim (see above para
9.81) sets out the very limited circumstances in which local authorities may terminate their social care duties.
Section 23 of the Care Act 2014 now provides that a local authority may not meet needs under sections 18–20 ‘by doing anything which it or another local authority is required to do under – (a) the Housing Act 1996, or (b) any other enactment specified in regulations’. However, at the time of Batantu and other similar cases, section 21(8) of the National Assistance Act 1948 had contained an even wider prohibition.
The primary question now, is whether an adult meets the criteria in the Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015. If the adult does, then it may be thought that ordinary accommodation may be provided, still, to meet that needs, since that it something that is not required to be done under the Housing Act 1996.