Claimants seek to take council tax reduction challenge to Supreme Court

The claimants challenging the London Borough of Haringey’s council tax reduction scheme are seeking to take their case to the Supreme Court, it emerged this week as a second judicial review of another local authority’s scheme was rejected by the High Court.

Sheffield City Council’s approval of its scheme on 23 January 2013 meant that the claimants and residents like them who previously benefited from a 100% exemption from council tax would now be required to pay 23% of their council tax liability.

In Buckley & Ors, R (on the application of) v Sheffield City Council [2013] EWHC 512, there were two grounds of challenge, namely that:

• The local authority’s consultation on its proposed scheme was unlawful because it offended against the common law requirement that sufficient information should be provided to consultees to allow them to make an informed response; and
• Sheffield had failed to have due regard to the impact of the proposals on persons with ‘protected characteristics’ such as children and disabled people as required by s. 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

Mr Justice Supperstone reserved judgment at the end of the hearing until after the Court of Appeal had delivered judgment in R (Sarah Stirling) v LB Haringey [2013] EWCA Civ 116.

The Court of Appeal upheld a ruling by Mr Justice Underhill dismissing the judicial review challenge to Haringey’s scheme.

Counsel for the claimants in the Sheffield case accepted that the Court of Appeal’s decision in Haringey bound the High Court and so their consultation challenge failed.

However, Ian Wise QC asked Mr Justice Supperstone to make no final order with respect to the consultation issue until the appellants’ application to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal had been finally determined (permission having been refused by the Court of Appeal).

However, the High Court judge said he saw no good reason for further delaying judgment in the case. He gave permission for the judicial review, but rejected the claimant’s grounds for challenge.

Mr Justice Supperstone said he did “not accept that the consultation suggested that there was simply no alternative to passing the shortfall on to current council tax benefit recipients”.

He added: “It is clear from the consultation document that there were other options and consultees were free to respond, and many did, in terms that the authority should fund the shortfall in full, or that the proposed 80% maximum award should be lower and people should pay more.”

Council tax increases or use of reserves were not realistic options and it would not have been sensible for the authority to have suggested that they were available, the judge said.

Mr Justice Supperstone pointed out that in the Sheffield case, as in Haringey, the scope of the consultation was prescribed by paragraph 3(1) of Schedule 1A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (inserted by the Local Government Finance Act 2012.

He said: “The defendant was required to publish a draft scheme and then to consult those persons who were likely to have an interest in the operation of that draft scheme.

“At paragraph 19 of his judgment [in Haringey], Sullivan LJ stated: ’Even if the statutory scheme had been less prescriptive and more open-textured as to the subject matter of the consultation process, I would not have concluded that the consultation document's failure to mention the other possible ways of meeting the shortfall in Central Government funding rendered the consultation process unfair.’"

The judge said that, accordingly, various reasons put forward in support of the contention that Sheffield's consultation contained insufficient or misleading information were not made out.

On the second ground for challenge, Mr Justice Supperstone said: “In my judgment it is clear from the evidence that the council had due regard to the impact of the proposals on persons with ‘protected characteristics’ such as children and disabled people as required by s. 149.”

The judge gave ten different reasons for reaching this conclusion. These included that the consultation documents recognised that the change might be more difficult for some residents to manage than others and that a cut in support might place some residents in severe hardship.

“Therefore the council stated that it was proposing extra support to meet the needs of the most vulnerable and those in greatest need, for example those with children or with disabilities,” he said.

Conor Maguire, a solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, said the claimants would be seeking to appeal those elements of Mr Justice Supperstone's decision which touched on the equality duties of local authorities.

He said: “We are disappointed with the decision which will now mean more 60,000 of the poorest, most vulnerable residents in Sheffield who currently get council tax benefit to some degree face the prospect of having to pay something additional towards council tax from April 2013.

“This is a lot of money to low income families and many will simply not be able to afford the payments as they are already struggling with basics such as food and heating.”

Philip Hoult