A London council acted unlawfully in failing to refer a homeless teenager to its children’s services department when processing his housing application, the Court of Appeal has held.
Lambeth Borough Council provided accommodation for the teenager for about seven months in 2006, under its Housing Act 1996, s 188 duty as a housing authority. The council conceded that it should have provided this under its Children Act 1989, s 20 duty as a children’s services authority.
The result was that the teenager was not given the additional support and advice he was due, although he was given accommodation.
Delivering judgment in R (on the application of TG v London Borough of Lambeth and Shelter (Intervener) [2011] EWCA Civ 526 Lord Justice Wilson said the facts of the case “reveal a serious absence of co-ordination” between the housing and children’s services departments, and that he had been persuaded that “such absence of co-ordination was positively unlawful”.
“Irrespective of the result of this appeal, I have no doubt that…a substantial number of vulnerable children are still suffering from a failure of co-ordination between these two departments within a number of English local authorities. Even if it transpires that this appeal should turn on a narrow factual axis, it should serve…to advertise the need for all local authorities to take urgent steps to remedy any such failure”.
However, an Art 8 breach was not proven because the consequences of the failure on the teenager’s personal development were “far too nebulous, far too speculative and, insofar as discernible, far too slight” to lead to a conclusion, he said.
Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive, who intervened in the case, comments: “This judgment confirms once again the clear legal duty councils have to ensure that joint protocols are in place to properly assess homeless teenagers.
“Unfortunately many councils have still not put these procedures in place, meaning that a vulnerable homeless child was denied the proper care and support he needed and was entitled to.”
