L, R (on the application of) v Leeds City Council (Rev 1)

A local authority’s statutory duty to meet a disabled child’s needs remains a matter for the authority’s judgment. The Administrative Court reviews that judgment for legality and rationality; it does not decide what care or accommodation would be preferable. Where fundamental rights are engaged, the intensity of review may increase, but the court must retain the distinction between review and merits decision-making. The authority must consider the child’s reasonably perceived needs, distinguishing necessity from desirability. In an evolving social-care situation, the court may consider the wider history and later evidence when assessing whether continued reliance on an earlier decision is rational. A claim may proceed despite procedural defects where prejudice can be cured by appropriate directions. On the facts, the refusal to provide a separate treatment room fell within the range of rational decisions.

The claimant, a child with cystic fibrosis, sought judicial review of Leeds City Council’s continuing refusal to provide a separate treatment room in the family home. The claim was initially framed as a failure to provide such a room, but the authority later completed a core assessment and formally decided that the claimant’s needs did not require one. The claimant relied on updated medical evidence concerning oxygen, intravenous antibiotics, physiotherapy, storage and cross-infection. The central issues were the proper scope of the challenge, the intensity of judicial review, the availability of an alternative complaints remedy, and whether the authority’s continuing decision was irrational.

The court granted permission in the form in which the claim was properly understood, but rejected the claim on its merits.

1. Scope of challenge. The claimant challenged the authority’s maintenance of its decision not to provide a treatment room in the light of later evidence. Earlier decisions and the evolving history were relevant context. They could be considered when deciding whether continued reliance on the April 2010 decision was rational, particularly if later evidence showed that the original decision rested on a materially false basis.
2. Judicial review. The statutory decision was for the local authority, not the court. The court was not exercising a welfare or best-interests jurisdiction and could not substitute its own view of the appropriate provision. The review remained one of legality and rationality, although the intensity of scrutiny could increase where Article 8 rights or other fundamental interests were engaged. The judge applied conventional public-law principles with an intensity appropriate to the context and would have reached the same conclusion under a more intensive approach.
3. Alternative remedy and procedure. Judicial review is ordinarily a remedy of last resort, and the complaints procedure could generally be relevant. On these particular facts, permission was not refused because the parties had invested substantial effort in the litigation and the claimant had been unable to participate effectively in the complaints process. The procedural defects could be cured by requiring precise grounds and treating specified matters as evidence.
4. Rationality. The authority was entitled to prefer the current multidisciplinary and social-work evidence. The girls generally used sitting physiotherapy devices, storage needs could be reduced, medical fridges could be supplied when required, and home intravenous antibiotics were administered only where clinicians considered that safe. The authority was also entitled to weigh social and psychological considerations. Taken individually and cumulatively, the claimant’s arguments did not establish that no reasonable local authority could have reached the decision.

The claim was rejected. The judge observed that the children’s circumstances might change, so the decision concerned the present challenge and did not determine what provision might be appropriate in future.