Facts: Mrs Stephenson was 78 and virtually house-bound on account of ill health. Stockton-on-Tees assessed her as needing 13¼ hours of care each week, in addition to the substantial amount of care already provided by her daughter. Mrs Stephenson paid her daughter £45.00 per week for this care, in part to compensate her for loss of earnings. However, when assessing what Mrs Stephenson could reasonably be expected to pay towards her care, Stockton-on-Tees declined to take into account the £45.00 as expenditure, pursuant to its policy to disregard the cost of care provided by a family member except where the assessment identified cultural issues.

Judgment: the Court of Appeal (Sedley and Wall LJJ, Richards J) held that it was rational for Stockton-on-Tees to have a policy of not making any allowance for expenditure on services provided by family members, as Keith J had held, but that, on the highly unusual facts of this case, the council had applied that policy with undue rigidity: the claimant was only prepared to allow her daughter to reduce her working hours, and then give up work altogether, on the basis that she was compensated financially for so doing.