The England & Wales High Court has ruled in R (on the application of J) v Worcester City Council [2013] EWHC 3845 that a Traveller boy with Down’s Syndrome should be able to access local council supports, even when located outside of the local authority boundaries due to the travelling nature of his family’s business. The child J, is 3 years old and required health and social care services to be provided and coordinated under section 17 Children Act 1989.
The court clarified that section 17 of the Children Act 1989 does indeed provide local authorities with the legal power to provide services to children in need outside their area when the children travel outside of the local authority’s boundaries for whatever reason. Judge Holman did note however that his broad-reaching judgment related to power and not to actual duties or responsibilities. He said that “In deciding whether or not they should exercise the power and whether they have any duty to do so, the local authority will have to take into consideration a very wide range of factors and legal duties. These may include the actual strength of his connection with Worcestershire; how far away he may go from the area; how long it is or will be since he left the area; and, perhaps importantly, whether or not or when he will return.” The Judge said the case was “one of widespread and general importance to all local authorities and many travelling or itinerant families”.
Worcester Council had claimed that it either (1) did not have the power under section 17 to provide services outside the relevant area or (2) even if it did, it wouldn’t be rational for it to have to provide the services. In a press release, the claimant’s solicitor Bindmans LLP said the Council’s position would have meant that an ‘iron curtain’ fell on service provision the moment a child stepped foot outside the authority boundary. They said that this would have run contrary to what Parliament intended with the Children Act and 2013 statutory guidance “Working Together to Safeguard Children”, which the judge examined for the first time. The court also upheld the Claimant’s arguments about the UN Convention on the Rights of Children and Equality Act’s application in such circumstances.
The judgment also clarified the law for local authorities, who have power under the legislation to share budgets when working together to provide services in the best interests of a child in need.
The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) was given permission to intervene in the case. Jan Luba QC for the EHRC illustrated in written submissions the groups who would be affected by the ruling: “in contemporary England, the majority of such communities and households are likely to be Romani Gypsies, Irish Travellers, New Travellers, travelling showmen and women, boat dwellers and others who are mobile and without fixed or permanent abodes. The facts of the instant case might be thought to well exemplify the circumstances of such households generally and of those containing disabled children particularly”.
The court dismissed as unworkable and contrary to a child’s best interests the Defendant’s suggestion that a child could apply for a fresh assessment in each authority to which it travelled.
Holman J referred to the 2013 statutory guidance which recommended a “holistic and integrated” approach to service provision “coordinated [by one authority] so that the child does not become lost between the different agencies involved and their different procedures”.
The PILA Bulletin Editorial Team would like to thank Bindmans LLP Associate Gwendolen Morgan for her assistance with this article.