Surrey County Council v BC

Whether a child is in need and requires accommodation under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 ordinarily involves professional social-work judgment. An assessment that early-help services can meet the child’s needs may be challenged only on ordinary judicial review principles. The court must apply the high threshold of Wednesbury unreasonableness and must not substitute its own assessment.

A local authority provides accommodation only where it assumes a sufficiently central or major role in arranging it. Merely helping to preserve a private arrangement is insufficient. Rights allegedly accrued from a historic failure to accommodate do not create a continuing duty or cause of action that avoids the requirement to bring judicial review proceedings promptly and within three months.

A 17-year-old with health and social difficulties presented to a housing authority as homeless after conflict with his parents. Surrey County Council assessed that he was staying with a friend’s family and that his needs could be met through non-statutory targeted early-help services.

Calver J allowed his judicial review claim in [2023] EWHC 3209 (Admin). He declared that the council had owed a duty to accommodate him under section 20 of the Children Act 1989, had later arranged his accommodation under that section, and consequently owed him advice-and-assistance responsibilities. He also held that the claim was timely or that time should be extended.

The council appealed. The central questions were whether the judge had substituted his own assessment for the council’s professional judgment, whether the council had provided accommodation, whether the claim was brought promptly, and whether any historic section 20 duty was continuing.

Appeal allowed and cross-appeal dismissed. The declarations made below were set aside.

1. Determining whether a young person is a child in need and whether the young person requires accommodation under section 20 of the Children Act 1989 involves professional social-work evaluation. An assessment that non-statutory early-help services can meet the young person’s needs is reviewable only on Wednesbury principles. The threshold is whether no reasonable social worker acting reasonably could have reached the assessment. The judge failed to keep that high threshold in view and substituted his own assessment.

2. The council was entitled to conclude that the young person was staying with a friend’s family, did not immediately require accommodation and could receive appropriate help through targeted youth services. A young person does not necessarily become a child in need merely because he has fallen out with his parents, is staying with a friend and needs support. Nor does every child in need who has been excluded from home necessarily require accommodation under section 20. The statutory question is whether it appears to the local authority that accommodation is required for one of the specified reasons.

3. The young person’s wishes were relevant but not determinative. Applying to the housing authority did not establish a wish to be accommodated by children’s services under section 20. For a person aged 17 years and nine months, the wishes ascertained under sections 17(4A) and 20(6) were likely to carry considerable weight.

4. The council did not provide accommodation under section 20. Its worker returned the young person to a home where he had already been staying and helped the two families reach a private financial arrangement. That was help with accommodation, not the assumption of a central or major role in arranging accommodation. He therefore never became a looked-after child and did not acquire rights under sections 24 or 24B.

5. The judicial review claim was not brought promptly or within three months as required by CPR 54.5. The operative decision was made in 2019. Later disclosure did not restart time, and no extension was justified. CPR 54.13 did not prevent an appeal against the decision to extend time.

6. Even assuming a section 20 duty had arisen, consequential accrued rights would not convert the historic decision into a continuing duty, state of affairs or cause of action. The alleged continuing duty therefore provided no answer to delay.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In [2025] EWCA Civ 719, allowed the council’s appeal, dismissed the respondent’s cross-appeal and set aside all three declarations.
2. High Court, Administrative Court: Calver J allowed the judicial review claim in [2023] EWHC 3209 (Admin). He declared that the council owed and performed a duty under section 20 of the Children Act 1989, and that the claimant consequently qualified for advice and assistance.