Council decision to pursue community-run libraries was unlawful, rules High Court judge

A decision by Surrey County Council to press ahead with plans for ten of its libraries to be run by community volunteers was unlawful, a High Court judge has ruled.

But the local authority claimed that the proposals could still go ahead, arguing that Mr Justice Wilkie had upheld a ‘technical challenge’ and had not criticised the plans.

The High Court judge will decide what is to happen next at a hearing in May. A lack of availability of the relevant lawyers meant the decision could not be taken this week.

In a judgment handed down today, Mr Justice Wilkie ruled that the decision on 27 September 2011 by Surrey’s Cabinet was unlawful because there should have been more information about equalities training for volunteers.

The judge said: “Due regard to the obvious equality issue of training of volunteers required, at the least, a rigorous consideration by the cabinet of the officers’ thinking on that issue as it had developed as a result of those consultations.

“In my judgment, the reliance by the Defendant on the same bland assertions that training would be required and monitored, as had been contained in the February report, fell substantially short of enabling the cabinet members to give due regard to this obvious equality issue at the stage the process had reached in September.”

Mr Justice Wilkie said it was not necessary for a local authority to consider such issues “to the nth degree of detail or ad infinitum”, but a summary of what, it was now anticipated, the training needs would be and how they might be met was an irreducible minimum to enable the cabinet to give this issue due regard at that stage. That this would be easy to achieve in a digestible form for cabinet members, he added.

The judge said Surrey failed as a result to have due regard to the equality issues required by s. 149 of the Equality Act 2010. This conclusion was reached both by deciding what was required for ‘due regard’ and on Wednesbury grounds.

Campaigners at Surrey Libraries Action Movement welcomed the ruling. In a statement on its website, SLAM said: “Given that the judge has found that the decision was unlawful we are confident that the decision will be quashed.”

But Helyn Clack, Surrey’s Cabinet Member for Community Services and the 2012 Games, said: “Today’s decision is no reflection on our plans for communities to run local libraries with support from the county council.

“Our aim all along has been to keep all Surrey’s libraries open and help them thrive, while elsewhere in the country branches are closing. We’ve listened to disability groups to develop training programmes for volunteers from the start and the judge recognised this.”

Philip Hoult