BDH, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Lambeth

Process rationality requires a public authority to address the correct questions, consider mandatory relevant matters, avoid irrelevant matters, and provide reasoning without logical gaps. A local authority assessing social care for a disabled child must begin by identifying the child’s needs and then determine whether services are necessary to meet them. It must not treat the absence of eligibility for a particular specialist team as conclusive that no social care need exists. Direct payments cannot be excluded merely because the authority’s organisational structure provides no team to monitor them. Where an existing valuable service is withdrawn, the authority must expressly address whether that service remains necessary and give adequate reasons. A reassessment may be ordered where the decision-making process was irrational, even though the court does not decide what substantive care package should be provided.

The claimant, a 15-year-old disabled child, sought judicial review of Lambeth’s decision on 20 March 2025 not to reinstate social care direct payments previously provided under the Children Act 1989. The challenge alleged process irrationality.

The payments had been terminated in September 2024 after the authority’s Children With Disabilities, Family Support and Child Protection, and Short Breaks teams each concluded that the claimant fell outside its specialist remit. Subsequent child and family assessments in March and June 2025 did not expressly address whether direct payments were necessary to meet her social care needs. The central issue was whether that reasoning process was lawful.

1. Claim succeeded. The court found that the March and June 2025 child and family assessments were tainted by process irrationality. The court did not decide that the claimant was substantively entitled to reinstatement of direct payments.
2. Process rationality requires consideration of mandatory relevant matters and exclusion of irrelevant matters. It also requires reasoning without a logical error, critical gap, unexplained evidential leap, or conclusion that does not follow from the evidence.
3. Under [2012] UKSC 23, the authority had to proceed through the relevant stages: identify the claimant’s needs; decide whether it was necessary to arrange any service listed in section 2(6) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970; determine the nature and extent of the necessary service; and, where direct payments were appropriate, determine their reasonable cost.
4. The authority instead asked whether the claimant qualified for services supplied by particular CSC teams. That approach wrongly allowed organisational boundaries to determine whether she had social care needs. The authority’s own policy identified direct payments as potentially available for children with moderate disability, although they would not qualify for the specialist disabilities team.
5. The failure expressly to consider direct payments, with reasons, was irrational in circumstances where an existing valuable service had been withdrawn without a clear explanation. If the authority concluded that direct payments were unnecessary, it had to say so directly and explain why.
6. The court considered that the continuing nature of the authority’s duties made a quashing order unnecessary. A declaration was neither necessary nor appropriate. A mandatory order was made requiring reassessment in accordance with the judgment.

First-instance judicial review. Permission was granted on 1 July 2025 by Mr Jason Beer KC sitting as a deputy High Court judge. No appellate decision is stated.