Antoniak, R (on the application of) v Westminster City Council

Under the Care Act 2014, a needs assessment must identify an adult’s needs without discounting needs that are currently being met by existing support or accommodation. Eligibility must then be determined by reference to all those needs. The assessment stage is distinct from the later stage at which the authority decides how eligible needs should be met.

In judicial review, the court supervises legality rather than substituting its own assessment. An assessment may be unlawful for failure to consider legally or rationally relevant matters, demonstrable unreasonableness, or failure to discharge statutory duties.

The claimant challenged Westminster City Council’s assessment of his care and support needs under the Care Act 2014. The assessment recorded that he could not achieve at least three specified outcomes, but concluded that there was no significant impact on his wellbeing and that any needs could be met by voluntary or private-sector agencies and existing accommodation.

The claimant argued that the assessment failed to comply with sections 9 and 13 and the Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015. The central issue was whether needs being met by existing support remain needs for the purposes of assessment and eligibility.

1. The claim succeeded in its principal respect. The assessment of 8 May 2019 did not discharge the defendant’s duties under sections 9 and 13 of the Care Act 2014.
2. A needs assessment must identify the individual’s needs arising from their identity and characteristics, whether or not those needs are currently being met. The statutory sequence is important: needs are assessed under section 9; eligibility is determined under section 13; and only then do the duties and powers to meet needs under sections 18 and 19 arise.
3. Excluding met needs would create circularity. A local authority’s performance of its duty to meet a need would remove that need from the assessment and potentially deprive the authority of the statutory basis for continuing to meet it. Regulation 2(3) of the Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015 also assumes that ability to achieve outcomes is assessed without regard to available assistance.
4. The structure of the Act, including the wellbeing principle, the provisions concerning review and movement between authorities, and section 37(8), confirms that the assessed needs are not merely unmet residual needs. The assessment must therefore consider the impact of all relevant needs on wellbeing without regard to how they are being met at the assessment date.
5. The form used by the assessor asked the relevant questions without current support. It recorded three unmet outcomes, but the conclusion that some needs did not exist because they were being met in the claimant’s accommodation was unlawful. A valid needs assessment was therefore absent, and no care and support plan could properly be ordered on that basis.
6. The court granted a declaration that the assessment did not discharge the defendant’s duties under sections 9 and 13. It refused a mandatory order requiring an immediate care and support plan or provision of care, since the claimant’s current entitlement and ordinary residence position were uncertain.

First-instance judicial review proceedings in the High Court (Administrative Court). No earlier decision is stated in the judgment.