Facts: After a severely disabled boy sustained an injury after a foster placement with Mrs Raines, the fostering panel recommended that she and her husband undergo further training. However, the defendant’s director wrote to the panel recommending that Mrs Raines be de-registered and informed Mrs Raines that that was his recommendation. The panel met again and following representations by Mrs Raines decided to de-register Mrs Raines, although some members considered that she was being scapegoated.

Judgment: the director and decision-maker had been required to communicate the original panel’s decision to Mrs Raines with his reasons for diverging from it, which he had failed to do and, in fact, he had not had a good reason for his divergence. Further, both he and the subsequent panel had relied on matters which, unfairly, had not been put to Mrs Raines for comment. A decision of this sort was not simply that of a private company dispensing with an independent contractor but a decision that would have to be disclosed to any other foster agency and would amount to a serious blot on Mrs Raines’ career as a foster carer. The decision to de-register Mrs Raines was procedurally unfair and, also, Wednesbury unreasonable.