B & Ors, R (on the application of) v Worcestershire County Council

A local authority may reorganise or close social-care services, and may consider cost, integration and equality. Where closure is expressly linked to transferring vulnerable users to identified alternative provision, however, the authority must take reasonable steps to obtain sufficient information to decide rationally that their assessed needs can be met there. General experience, assurances and average staffing figures may be insufficient. The required analysis is fact-sensitive and should address the users’ particular needs, the proposed staffing and facilities, and competing demands on resources. The court must not substitute its view for that of the authority. Consultation is lawful where consultees have enough information to make targeted representations, even if the authority has not yet undertaken every detailed analysis demanded by the claimants.

The claimants were three adults with profound and multiple learning disabilities who attended Pershore Day Care Centre. Their parents and litigation friends challenged the council’s decision to close Pershore and Perryfields and transfer the claimants to a reconfigured Cherry Orchard centre. The challenge alleged irrationality, inadequate information and defective consultation.

The council had assessed the claimants’ community-care needs and relied on its experience of integrating users with different levels of disability, including at the Halcyon Centre. The central issue was whether the council had sufficient information to conclude rationally that the proposed staffing and facilities at Cherry Orchard would meet the claimants’ assessed needs.

1. Decision quashed. The decision of 8 February 2008 to close Pershore Day Care Centre was quashed. The claimants succeeded on the rationality and information ground but failed on consultation.
2. The council was entitled to review and reform its services. It could take account of cost, efficiency, integration, equality and its experience of other centres. The court’s role was not to substitute its own view for that of the council.
3. The governing question was whether the council had taken reasonable steps to acquaint itself with the relevant information so that it could decide rationally whether the claimants’ assessed needs would be met under the proposed arrangements. This required attention to the specific needs of the claimants, the staff available at the reconfigured Cherry Orchard, its facilities, and the other demands on those resources.
4. This was not an ordinary premature challenge to a closure decision. The closure of Pershore and the transfer of the users to specified alternative centres were presented as an integrated package. The council therefore had to satisfy itself, before deciding to close, that the proposed alternative provision could meet the claimants’ needs.
5. The council’s evidence showed confidence based on general experience and the successful Halcyon model, but did not identify a minimum staffing ratio for the anticipated mix of users or demonstrate that the projected staff would provide it. The assurances given to the Cabinet were therefore unsupported by the necessary detailed analysis.
6. The consultation was not unlawfully defective. The claimants and their representatives understood the central issue and were able to make targeted representations that the council lacked sufficient information to conclude that Cherry Orchard would meet their needs.
7. The defendant was ordered to pay 85 per cent of the claimants’ costs. Permission to appeal was refused, but time for service of an appellant’s notice was extended to 14 days after circulation of the approved transcript.

The judgment itself is a first-instance judicial review decision. It records that permission was granted on four grounds by a Deputy High Court Judge on 22 October 2008.