Facts: Ealing revised their Housing Allocation Scheme so that 20 per cent of their allocations would be made to existing tenants seeking to transfer, who had not been in breach of their tenancy agreements for specified periods of time, and to ‘working households’, defined as households which included a person who had been employed for at least 24 hours a week during 12 of the previous 18 months.

Judgment: HHJ Waksman QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, held that the quota for working households discriminated indirectly against people with disabilities, elderly people and women in breach of section 19 of the Equality Act 2010 in that although it pursued a legitimate objective the difference in treatment was not justified because it was not the least intrusive means of achieving that aim, in that Ealing had failed to include a discretion allowing them to override the quota for those who were unable to work because of disability, age or caring responsibilities. In addition, the quota was incompatible with Articles 8 and 14 ECHR and the process was in breach of the PSED at section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 in that Ealing’s Equalities Analysis had failed to give proper consideration to how the quota might affect those with protected characteristics.