Barrett, R (On the Application Of) v City of Westminster Council

A housing authority must conscientiously investigate and evaluate the information relevant to an applicant’s possible vulnerability and priority need. Mere reference to the applicable criteria, without applying the applicant’s evidence to them, is unlawful. The authority must consider the applicant’s circumstances cumulatively, including the effects of homelessness and relevant medical conditions. Judicial review remains limited where the decision is discretionary, but the court may intervene where the authority has paid only lip service to its statutory and equality duties.

The claimant challenged decisions by the defendant local housing authority concerning her application for accommodation under Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996. The challenge concerned the authority’s refusal to secure accommodation pending review under section 188(3), its assessment of priority need and vulnerability, and compliance with the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

The authority’s initial decision applied the approach in R v Camden London Borough Council, Ex p Pereira and preceded the Supreme Court’s decision in [2015] UKSC 30. The central issue was whether the subsequent reconsideration decisions conscientiously addressed the claimant’s medical evidence, circumstances and homelessness.

1. Outcome. The claim succeeded in part. The original decision was not quashed, but the subsequent reconsideration decisions were unlawful and were quashed. The defendant was required to reconsider whether to provide accommodation pending review.
2. Under section 184 of the Housing Act 1996, the local housing authority bears the general responsibility for making the inquiries necessary to determine eligibility, homelessness and the duty owed. The evidential burden is not placed on the applicant.
3. The decision-maker must apply the correct vulnerability approach identified in Hotak v London Borough of Southwark [2015] UKSC 30: comparison is with an ordinary person when homeless, rather than an ordinary actual homeless person. Relevant problems must be considered together, and homelessness is not confined to street homelessness. The judgment treated Hotak as clarifying an ambiguity in Pereira, rather than necessarily creating an entirely new test.
4. The authority’s discretion was recognised, consistently with Francis v Kensington and Chelsea Royal London Borough Council [2003] 1 WLR 2248. Nevertheless, as illustrated by R (on the application of) Paul-Coker v London Borough of Southwark [2006] EWHC 497 (Admin), merely identifying the relevant criteria and evidence is insufficient. If the authority pays lip service to the test and the information supplied, its decision is unlawful.
5. The later letters failed conscientiously to address the claimant’s severe medical conditions, occupational therapist evidence and history of rough sleeping. They therefore failed to comply with the necessary inquiry and equality-duty requirements. No interim accommodation order was made because a fresh decision was imminent, but the defendant undertook to take that decision by close of business on Friday.

This was a first-instance judicial review. The judgment records that earlier applications for interim accommodation had been refused by Parker J, but gives no citation for those decisions.