Senior judge slams lack of co-ordination between housing and children's services teams

A senior judge has said that he has “no doubt” that a substantial number of vulnerable children are still suffering from a failure of co-ordination between the housing and children’s services departments within a number of English local authorities.

Lord Justice Wilson, who was recently appointed to the Supreme Court, said local authorities should take urgent steps to remedy any such failure.

The judge made his comments in the Court of Appeal case of TG, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Lambeth [2011] EWCA Civ 526. The case involved a claim against Lambeth for judicial review of its decision that the appellant (TG) was not a “former relevant child” within the meaning of s.23C(1) of the Children Act 1989 and so the council did not owe him the duties set out in that section, such as to give him access to a pathway plan and provide him with a personal adviser.

TG had moved when he was six from the care of his father in Jamaica to that of his mother in Lambeth. In 2004, at the age of 15, he began to get in trouble with the police. He also came to the attention of Lambeth's Youth Offending Services (YOS). Between March 2005 and January 2007, TG came into contact with eight different social workers within the YOS.

In January 2006, the appellant told the social worker he had most dealings with that he intended to approach the Homeless Persons Unit in Lambeth’s housing department for the provision of independent accommodation as relations with his mother had deteriorated.

The social worker wrote a homelessness and social vulnerability report for TG to take to the unit. She expressly concluded in the report that the appellant was a “child in need”, but she did not refer him to the council’s children’s services department.

Lambeth provided TG with accommodation for a seven-month period between March and October 2006, when he was aged 16 and 17. The accommodation was ostensibly provided by the council as a local housing authority pursuant to its interim duty under s.188 of the Housing Act 1996. Like the YOS, the housing department also did not refer TG to the children’s services department.

The council conceded that “in all probability” the accommodation should have been provided by it as a children’s services authority under s.20 of the 1989 Act. The appeal turned on whether the law treated or deemed the accommodation to have been provided under s.20 for the purpose of determining whether Lambeth “looked after” him within the meaning of s.22.

In the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Wilson said Lambeth had failed to follow relevant guidance issued by the Department of Health, the Home Office and the Department of Education.

He added that “notwithstanding the absence of clear links between Lambeth’s YOS and its children’s services department”, he was driven to conclude that the principal social worker had been at fault. She was a qualified social worker who had experience of work with children and young people, the judge said.

The trial judge, McCombe J, had concluded that the duty was not triggered until the child came to the attention of the division of the local authority responsible for those functions in the ordinary course, and that this had not happened. “The peripheral attention of a duly qualified official of a different team will not do,” McCombe J said, rejecting the claim for judicial review.

Overturning this ruling, Lord Justice Wilson said: “We are surveying an entitlement on the part of the appellant to a package of benefits which, had Lambeth lawfully conducted itself in accordance with guidance, should have arisen. But has it arisen?”

The Court of Appeal judge said the principal social worker “was not merely a qualified social worker with experience of social work in relation to children: her membership of the YOS reflected a statutory requirement that at least one of its members should have such experience”.

The judge added that in the YOS the principal social worker represented the “eyes and ears” of the children and families division.

“With respect, I disagree with the judge that the appellant has to show that the children and families division acted ‘in the ordinary course’,” Lord Justice Wilson said. “My view is that the actions of the [social worker] are properly to be imputed to the division.”

He therefore allowed TG’s appeal, quashed Lambeth’s decision and declared that TG had the status of a “former relevant child” from his 18th birthday.

“Whether the declaration has any relevance for the future, now that the appellant has attained the age of 21, is a matter upon which I hope that the parties can agree or into which they can at least devise an agreed programme of enquiry,” the judge said.

In relation to the past, however, Lord Justice Wilson concluded that article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to respect for private family life) had not been breached and TG was not entitled to proceed with his claim for damages.

Lord Justice Wilson said that his account of the facts revealed “a serious absence of co-ordination in relation to the appellant’s case within Lambeth, including between its housing department and its children’s services department”.

The Court of Appeal judge added that submissions made by counsel for Shelter’s Children’s Legal Services, which intervened in the case, had persuaded him that such absence of co-ordination was “positively unlawful”.

The judge cited research carried out by Shelter into the existence of procedures for co-ordination between departments at the 144 remaining local authorities with responsibilities in this area. Two-thirds failed to respond to the charity’s enquiry, which the judge said “raises concern”.

According to Shelter, the responses from those that took part revealed a mixed picture of compliance and non-compliance.

Philip Hoult