C, R (on the application of) v The London Borough of Islington

A local housing authority’s allocation scheme may confer a discretion, rather than impose an obligation, to award welfare points. “Settled accommodation” is a question of fact and degree and is not confined to Part VI social housing; suitable Part VII accommodation may qualify.

An allocation scheme must disclose material eligibility criteria and procedures. Operating a direct-offer system for applicants with fewer points than the published threshold, without setting out the criteria, was unlawful.

A local lettings policy may differentiate between homeless applicants and existing local social tenants if the discriminatory effect is justified. The court must scrutinise the particular policy, while considering the wider scheme and giving substantial weight to the authority’s expertise in allocating scarce housing.

The claimant, a profoundly deaf mother of three who had become homeless following domestic violence, was owed the full housing duty under section 193(2) of the Housing Act 1996. The defendant provided Part VII accommodation and awarded her 110 points under its allocation scheme.

She challenged the refusal to award Category C welfare points, the defendant’s procedure for making direct offers of social housing, and the local lettings policy. The challenge raised issues under Part VI of the Housing Act 1996, article 14 read with article 8 ECHR, the Equality Act 2010, and section 11 of the Children Act 2004.

1. Welfare points. The scheme used “may” and “comparable”, so the authority retained an evaluative discretion. It had to consider whether housing or other circumstances severely affected welfare needs, but was not obliged to award points merely because an applicant appeared to meet an example in the scheme.
2. Settled accommodation. The expression was not statutory and was not necessarily limited to Part VI social housing. It depended on fact and degree. The authority could consider the period already spent in Part VII accommodation and the likelihood of the claimant remaining there. It was entitled to regard her accommodation as settled and suitable, and to reject the welfare-points challenge.
3. Direct offers. The published scheme indicated a 120-point threshold, but the defendant operated direct offers for applicants with at least 100 points without stating that criterion or the applicable decision-making criteria. This breached section 166A(1) of the Housing Act 1996 and common-law requirements of transparency. The claimant’s original decision and review were unlawful.
4. Discrimination. The local lettings policy caused a difference in treatment engaging article 14 with article 8. The appropriate proportionality questions were those in Bank Mellat v HM Treasury (No 2) [2013] UKSC 39. For this local housing-allocation decision, proportionality was for the court, although significant weight was owed to the authority’s expertise and responsibility for scarce resources. The policy pursued a legitimate aim, was rationally connected to it, and struck a fair balance.
5. The authority had sufficiently rigorous and conscientious regard to the public-sector equality duty and had complied with section 11 of the Children Act 2004. Permission was granted to rely on further evidence, and the direct-offer procedure and resulting decisions were declared unlawful.

First-instance judicial review proceedings. The judgment records that the points-threshold issue had previously been decided in R (Woolfe) v Islington LBC [2016] EWHC 1907 (Admin), subject to appeal.