KR, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Anor

Social Fund Directions must be interpreted sensibly and in accordance with their evident purpose, while respecting the ordinary meaning of their language. A journey is not necessarily a journey to or from school merely because it begins or ends there. The relevant question is the journey’s true purpose. An ordinary school run is excluded by Direction 23(1)(a)(iv), but a journey enabling children to move between separated parents’ homes may fall within the community care grant scheme. The theoretical availability of funding under another statutory scheme does not justify treating such a journey as wholly excluded from eligibility.

The claimant, a separated father, sought judicial review of refusals of community care grants for journeys enabling his children to move between his home and their mother’s home. The children attended school near their mother’s home, and some handover journeys began or ended at the school. Earlier applications had been granted, but the challenged applications were refused on the basis that the claimant was not under exceptional pressure and, subsequently, that some journeys might be excluded as travelling expenses to or from school.

The central issue was whether Direction 23(1)(a)(iv) excluded handover journeys, as distinct from ordinary journeys taking children to school and returning them home the same day.

1. The claim succeeded. The court quashed the refusals insofar as they treated the claimant’s handover journeys as excluded by Direction 23(1)(a)(iv).
2. The Social Fund Directions had to be interpreted in a common-sense manner giving effect to their evident purpose, without departing from the ordinary meaning of the language. The approach in R v Secretary of State for Social Services ex parte Stitt (DC, 21 February 1990) and R v Social Fund Inspector ex parte Healey and others (DC, 17 April 1991) was applicable.
3. The court first considered whether funding a handover journey was consistent with the purpose of the Social Fund, and then whether the journey was excluded by the Direction. Travel expenses incurred to ease exceptional pressure on the applicant and his family fell within the purpose identified in Direction 4.
4. The phrase travelling expenses to or from school could not be applied by simple map reading. An ordinary school run remained excluded. A journey whose purpose was to facilitate a change of residence between separated parents was materially different, even where the children were collected from or returned to school.
5. The possibility that an education authority might theoretically fund the journey under section 509 of the Education Act 1996 did not justify excluding it altogether. The availability of another statutory scheme was relevant to the discretionary assessment under section 140(1) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, but did not determine the construction of the exclusion.

This was a first-instance judicial review of decisions by Department for Work and Pensions officers and Social Fund Inspectors. No appellate history was stated.