Williams v Birmingham City Council

A housing authority reviewing the suitability of accommodation must make sufficient enquiries to discharge its statutory function properly, having regard to the statutory context, function and purpose. It need not investigate every possible detail. A challenge succeeds only where no reasonable reviewing officer could have failed to regard further enquiries as necessary.

Where travel difficulties arise because a child may remain at an existing school, the authority may reasonably treat a change to suitable local schooling as addressing the problem. Failure to investigate journey times or childcare arrangements is not necessarily an error of law where the relevant circumstances have been considered and the proposed change of school is not irrational.

After her father’s death, the appellant lost entitlement to a further succession to her parents’ secure council tenancy and faced homelessness with two young children. Birmingham City Council offered a three-bedroom maisonette. Following a review under the Housing Act 1996, the reviewing officer decided that the accommodation was suitable and that the Council’s homelessness duty was discharged.

The appellant appealed under section 204, arguing that the reviewing officer should have made further enquiries about travel to her son’s school, childcare for her younger child, the burden of the journey and alternative schools. Miss Recorder McNeill QC dismissed the appeal in Birmingham County Court on 21 December 2006. The central issue was whether further enquiries were legally required.

1. Disposition. Ward LJ delivered the principal judgment. Buxton LJ agreed, and Lawrence Collins LJ agreed that the appeal should be dismissed. The appeal was therefore dismissed unanimously.
2. Duty to enquire. The governing approach was the general administrative-law duty described in R v Islington Borough Council ex parte Thomas [1990] 30 HLR 111. Having regard to the statutory context, the function to be performed and the object to be achieved, the decision-maker must make sufficient enquiries to be satisfied that the statutory role can properly be discharged. The duty does not require every enquiry that could be made. The Court also adopted the formulation in Cramp v Hastings Borough Council [2005] 48 Housing Law Reports 786: a challenge lies only where no reasonable council could have failed to regard the suggested further enquiries as necessary.
3. Application. The reviewing officer knew the distance between the accommodation and the existing school, the need for two bus journeys and the ages of the children. He was entitled to use local knowledge in estimating the journey. The appellant’s request for review did not expressly raise a general difficulty in travelling with the younger child, and the authority was entitled to start from the objections as stated. It was not legally required to elicit an unstated case.
4. The journey problem arose only if the child remained at the existing school. The reviewing officer reasonably concluded that changing schools would not cause long-term educational detriment. There was no evidence of special educational needs or a need for a particular type of school, and no irrational assumption that suitable educational resources would be available near the new accommodation. Further enquiries about journey times, childcare or alternative schooling were therefore not legally necessary.
5. The harshness of the decision and the family’s difficult circumstances did not establish an error of law. The Council’s longer-term responsibility for managing its public housing stock was a relevant contextual consideration. The Recorder had correctly dismissed the appeal on the point of law.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was dismissed in [2007] EWCA Civ 691.
2. Birmingham County Court: Miss Recorder McNeill QC dismissed the appellant’s appeal on 21 December 2006. Permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal was granted by Chadwick LJ.