Sonia Gould & Anor, R (on the application of) v Devon County Council

A public authority’s failure to consider a statutory duty is unlawful only where the duty is an expressly mandatory consideration or is so obviously material that rationality requires its consideration. This applies to general or target duties, although their broad scope makes that conclusion less likely. The court must distinguish the lawfulness of the decision-making process from whether the final decision breached the duty.

Where a statutory policy obligation applies only so far as a strategy is relevant, relevance is assessed objectively, but in practice will usually overlap with obvious materiality. A public authority may rationally close a non-statutory service where alternative publicly funded provision exists, duplication is reduced, and transitional support is planned.

The claimants, users of the North Devon Link Service, challenged Devon County Council’s decision to close three mental-health drop-in centres and support users in moving to alternative community services.

They alleged failures to consider duties under the Care Act 2014 and the National Health Service Act 2006, an obligation concerning the One Devon Integrated Care Strategy under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, failures to consider relevant policies, and irrationality. The council relied on budgetary pressures, the non-statutory nature of the Service, changed provision since 1992, and planned transitional support.

The central issues were whether the statutory duties and policies were mandatory or obviously material considerations, whether they had been taken into account, and whether closure was irrational.

1. Claim dismissed. The claimants had not established that the council’s understanding of the Service was wrong. On the evidence, or at least on the evidence available to the decision-maker, it was open to the council to treat the Service as providing social and related support rather than crisis or specialist mental-health intervention. The court would not substitute its own view of the Service’s merits.
2. The principles in CREEDNZ, as approved in Friends of the Earth and derived from Fewings, distinguish: considerations which legislation requires to be taken into account; considerations which legislation excludes; and considerations which the decision-maker may consider in its discretion. Failure to consider a third-category matter is unlawful only where it was so obviously material that the omission was irrational.
3. A general or target duty can, in principle, be a mandatory or obviously material consideration. Its character does not create an individual entitlement or convert it into a specific duty. Materiality depends on the nature and scope of the duty, the decision, the factual context, and the risk that the decision will breach the duty. The existence of a duty and the lawfulness of the process are logically prior to whether the final decision breached it.
4. DAT explains what adequate consideration requires where consideration is otherwise mandatory. It does not establish that every statutory duty must be considered, nor that the duties under sections 2, 3 and 5 of the Care Act 2014 were category-one considerations here. The claimants had not pleaded a case that the council was exercising those duties in providing or closing the Service.
5. The Care Act duties and the NHS health-improvement duty were not obviously material. The Service was non-statutory, the council was entitled to proceed on its understanding of its limited function, assessed Care Act needs were to remain met, alternative services existed, and the closure would align North Devon with the rest of Devon. The policies were neither relevant to the function for section 116B purposes nor obviously material, because they did not identify the Service or comparable drop-in provision as part of suicide prevention.
6. The closure was rationally open to the council. Relevant considerations included financial pressures, alternative publicly funded services, duplication, the successful Holsworthy transition, consistency across the county, and a minimum three-month transition period. The fall-back arguments based on institutional knowledge and substantive consideration would also have failed if the duties or policies had been mandatory.