Facts: St Helens provided a very expensive care package to PE, within its area. PE then moved to the Manchester area and St Helens assessed PE as requiring supported housing in Manchester with, again, a very expensive, and unusual, care package which it arranged, funded and supervised. After a period of time St Helens sought to shift responsibility to Manchester. St Helens obtained a determination from the Secretary of State that PE had become ordinarily resident in Manchester and, on that basis, determined to bring its provision for PE to an end. Manchester sought a judicial review of that decision, on the basis that having set up PE’s care package in the Manchester area, St Helens owed a continuing duty to make such provision for PE.

Judgment: a local authority had a power to provide services outside of its area, under section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948, but was entitled to cease provision, subject to normal considerations of rationality, abuse of power or legitimate expectation. In this case, the Secretary of State’s ordinary residence termination was a rational basis for terminating provision, including because section 29 imposed a statutory duty on Manchester. It would be an ‘abuse’ to ‘dump’ service users in other areas, but that had not occurred here.

Comment: under the new statutory scheme, this case would be decided differently, in that because of the ‘first deeming provision’ (see above para 12.16), St Helens would continue to be responsible. Potentially, St Helens might also now be regarded as continuing to be responsible under the Cornwall principle,1R (Cornwall Council) v Secretary of State for Health [2015] UKSC 46, [2015] 3 WLR 213, (2015) 18 CCLR 497.although the original placement was not under the Children Act 1989.