Restricting adult care to “critical” cases in breach of Disability Discrimination Act 1995, judge rules

Birmingham City Council breached disability discrimination laws as it sought to limit its adult care budget, a High Court judge has ruled.

The families of four disabled adults challenged the local authority’s decision that any needs that were not “critical” would no longer be provided for after 1 April 2011.

Birmingham had carried out a consultation on the proposals as part of wider efforts to reduce its overall budget, and the plans were approved by the Council at meetings on 1 and 14 March this year. Lawyers for the families claimed that the local authority’s proposals did not promote equality under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

They also argued that the consultation process carried out by the council failed to meet legal requirements in a number of areas – particularly its lack of clarity in relation to which groups would be affected, and what the options for those people who would have their care package removed were, according to claimant firm Irwin Mitchell.

In an interim judgment Mr Justice Walker, sitting in Birmingham, has now declared the council’s budget unlawful in relation to adult care. A full judgment will be published next month.

The ruling means that Birmingham will have to review the setting of its adult social care budget and make a fresh decision. “It is open to the council now to retake its decision and continue providing services for those with ‘critical’ and ‘substantial’ needs in the meantime,” Irwin Mitchell said. “The council will need to find the funds within the budget already set to continue to fund for the ‘substantial’ care needs of disabled and older people.”

Polly Sweeney, a solicitor at the firm who advised Ms A, a 65 year old lady with severe learning disabilities, said the case had national significance. “Proposals to cut mandatory duties and tighten eligibility for social care are the major issues in the social care sector,” she said. “This is about saving front line services for vulnerable and disabled people. It is a very significant outcome and with Birmingham City Council being the UK’s largest local authority; it’s very likely that the result will set a precedent for other cases. Other councils up and down the country seeking to target vulnerable groups through cost-cutting drives may be legally challenged.”

Irwin Mitchell claimed that Birmingham’s plans would have affected up to 5,000 disabled people.

A spokesman for the council told the BBC that the authority would be looking at the judgement in detail before deciding whether to appeal. He said: "The generality of the budget is not affected, this is a decision about the eligibility criteria for adult social care. Like all councils, Birmingham faces a huge financial challenge, with adults and communities having to make a share of the savings like all other directorates, and we need to assess the impact of this decision.

"It is also important to point out that this judgement is about the process we went through with regard to the Disability Discrimination Act, not the actual decision about where savings should be made."

This is the second case in a matter of weeks where a High Court judge has ruled that Birmingham breached equalities duties.

Mr Justice Blake recently ruled that the authority had failed to have due regard to its public sector equalities duties when it decided to cut funding for a number of legal advice services.