Ghandali, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Ealing

In reviewing successive decisions on housing priority, the court may assess the process and evidence in the round where the decision-making process is continuing. The authority must address the statutory and policy criteria actually applicable to the claimant. Medical advice must engage with later evidence that may undermine earlier conclusions, including evidence of deterioration or a causal connection between accommodation and illness. A decision is irrational where it relies on advice that fails to consider material evidence or uses an unexplained distinction between the effect of housing conditions and the resulting need to move. The court may quash the decision and require reconsideration, but should not determine the appropriate housing band itself.

The claimant, who suffered serious mental illness including post-traumatic stress disorder, challenged Ealing’s decision to retain her in the lowest housing-priority band. She contended that her bedsit adversely affected her mental health and created a particular need to move under Ealing’s medical-priority scheme. Ealing relied on medical advice stating that her deterioration could not be attributed to the accommodation and that the reported stressors were common in communal housing. Further medical and social-work evidence was subsequently provided, including evidence of an overdose and a direct connection between the accommodation and her symptoms. The issue was whether the decisions maintaining Band D were irrational and unlawful.

1. Approach to successive decisions. The court treated the continuing sequence of decisions and representations as a whole. Following the approach referred to in Bellouti v London Borough of Wandsworth [2005] EWCA Civ 602, the question was whether the ultimate decision was one to which Ealing could lawfully come and whether its reasons bore analysis.
2. Relevant housing criteria. The medical issue under Ealing’s scheme was whether the current housing conditions adversely affected the claimant’s medical condition and whether that adverse effect created a particular need to move. The fact that the claimant had obtained the accommodation herself was only a background fact. It could not properly be used to conclude that the accommodation was suitable or that it did not affect her condition.
3. Irrationality. Later evidence materially undermined the earlier medical conclusions. It included the claimant’s overdose, evidence linking the accommodation with her symptoms, and professional evidence that suitable social housing need not contain the same stressors. The medical adviser failed to explain whether he denied the adverse effect itself or merely denied that it created a need to move. He also failed to reconsider earlier conclusions in light of the later evidence. Ealing’s reliance on that advice consequently tainted its decisions.
4. Relief. The decisions of 16 January and 7 March 2006 were quashed. Ealing was directed to reconsider the claimant’s circumstances and all the evidence on rational and appropriate grounds. The court did not determine the appropriate band. Costs were awarded in principle, subject to careful scrutiny by the costs judge of the claimant’s solicitors’ claims for time and rates.