30. I agree that this appeal should be dismissed for the reasons given by Pill LJ. Some basic points may deserve emphasis given the recent expansion of litigation in this field. Under section 21(1)(a) of the National Assistance Act 1948, local social services authorities have a duty to make arrangements for providing residential accommodation for people over 18 (who are ordinarily resident in their area or in urgent need) where three inter-related conditions are fulfilled:

(1) the person is in need of care and attention;(2) that need arises by reason of age, illness, disability or any other circumstances; and(3) that care and attention is not available to him otherwise than by the provision of residential accommodation under this particular power.

Three further points are also relevant:

(1) it is for the local social services authority to assess whether or not these conditions are fulfilled and, if so, how the need is to be met, subject to the scrutiny of the court on the ordinary principles of judicial review;(2) section 21 does not permit the local social services authority to make provision which may or must be made by them or any other authority under an enactment other than Part III of the 1948 Act (see s21(8) ); but(3) having identified a need to be met by the provision of residential accommodation under section 21, the authority have a positive duty to meet it which can be enforced in judicial review proceedings (see R v Sefton MBC ex p Help the Aged and Others [1997] 4 All ER 532, (1997) 1 CCLR 57, CA; R v Kensington and Chelsea RLBC ex p Kujtim [1999] 4 All ER 161, (1999) 2 CCLR 340, CA).

31. Mr Goudie’s argument, skilfully and attractively though it was put, was ultimately circular. It is common ground that the ‘residential accommodation’ which may be provided under section 21 includes ordinary housing (see, on this point, R v Newham LBC ex p Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (1997–98) 1 CCLR 227; R v Bristol CC ex p Penfold (1997–98) 1 CCLR 315; R (Batantu) v Islington LBC (2001) 4 CCLR 445). I agree with Stanley Burnton J, at first instance in this case (see (2001) 4 CCLR 455, at para 27), that there are several indications in the Act that the kind of accommodation originally envisaged was in a residential home or hostel. This is the power under which local authorities provided elderly and aged people’s homes or arranged accommodation in such homes run by others. However, it can no longer be assumed that a need for care and attention can only be properly met in an institutional setting. There are people who are undoubtedly in need of care and attention for whom local social services authorities wish to provide residential accommodation in ordinary housing. The most obvious examples are small groups of people with learning disabilities who are able to live in ordinary houses with intensive social services support; or single people with severe mental illnesses who will not receive the regular medication and community psychiatric nursing they need unless they have somewhere to live. Whatever the words ‘residential accommodation’ may have meant in 1948, therefore, they are a good example of language which is ‘always speaking’ and can be change its meaning in the light of changing social conditions (see the observations of this court in R v Westminster CC ex p M, P, A and X (1997–98) 1 CCLR 85 at 90). Hence, Mr Knafler, in common with others who have appeared for local social services authorities, has conceded that ‘residential accommodation’ can mean ordinary housing without the provision of any ancillary services.

32. But it does not follow that because residential accommodation can mean ordinary housing and the claimant is in need of ordinary housing, a duty arises to provide him with that housing under section 21(1)(a). That duty is premised on an unmet need for ‘care and attention’ (a ‘condition precedent’, as this court put it in the Westminster case, at p93E). These words must be given their full weight. Their natural and ordinary meaning in this context is ‘looking after’: this can obviously include feeding the starving, as with the destitute asylum-seekers in the Westminster case. Ordinary housing is not in itself ‘care and attention’. It is simply the means whereby the necessary care and attention can be made available if otherwise it will not (I do not understand this court to have rejected that part of the local authority’s argument in the Westminster case, at p93B–D).