Khana v London Borough Of Southwark

A local authority must assess and meet a person’s community-care needs, rather than provide the accommodation which the person or family prefers. It must take proper account of the person’s wishes, family links and independence. Those matters do not displace a reasonable assessment that only residential accommodation will meet all material assessed needs.

Where a reasonable and unchallenged assessment identifies residential care as the only adequate means of meeting those needs, an offer of suitable residential accommodation satisfies the authority’s duty under National Assistance Act 1948. The authority need not provide ordinary housing which would meet only some needs. Its accommodation duty under section 21 remains distinct from any welfare services it may provide under section 29.

The appellant was an elderly woman with serious physical, sensory and mental-health difficulties. She lived with her husband and daughter in an unsuitable second-floor flat. Following an assessment under section 47(1) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, Southwark concluded that her needs could properly be met only by full-time residential care.

Southwark initially offered residential accommodation for the appellant alone, then offered a joint placement for her and her husband. The family preferred a two-bedroom ground-floor flat with community support. Their judicial-review challenge failed before Hallett J, who held that the joint residential placement was the only reasonable option.

The appellant appealed, contending that Southwark remained obliged to provide ordinary accommodation when residential care was unacceptable to the family. The central issue was whether that preference required the authority to provide accommodation which it had reasonably assessed as insufficient to meet all of the appellant’s needs.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Lord Justice Mance gave the judgment, with whom Mr Justice McKinnon and Lord Justice Henry agreed. Southwark was entitled to maintain its offer of a joint residential-home placement and was not obliged to offer a two-bedroom ground-floor flat.

2. Section 47(1) of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 requires an assessment of needs and a decision whether they call for services. The substantive duties under Part III of the National Assistance Act 1948 then require assessed needs to be met. Ordinary housing can be provided under section 21(1)(a) where it meets a need for care and attention; there is no rigid precondition that the same need could otherwise be met by another community service.

3. The authority had taken account of the family’s wishes, cultural concerns, and the importance of independence and family life. However, those were preferences, rather than an assessed need for a particular flat. Southwark had reasonably concluded that ordinary housing would not meet important care and safety needs, including risks to the appellant and her principal carer. The authority’s statutory function was to assess and meet needs, not to supply a new form of accommodation which met only some of them.

4. The court accepted that refusal of residential accommodation does not extinguish the distinct capacity and duty under section 29 to provide such welfare services as can be supplied at home. That did not oblige Southwark under section 21 to create a different housing arrangement which it had assessed as inadequate.

5. The court explained R v Kensington BC, ex p Kujtim [1999] 4 AER 161 as concerning refusal of accommodation provided by the method reasonably assessed as appropriate. It did not require an authority to adopt an alternative method which would fail to meet assessed needs. Southwark was nevertheless required to keep the appellant’s needs under review.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Appeal dismissed: [2001] EWCA Civ 999.
• Queen’s Bench Division (Administrative Court): Hallett J dismissed the judicial-review challenge on 1 December 2000, holding that the offer of joint residential accommodation was the only reasonable option.