What now for deprivations of liberty?
What will the effect of the postponement of the Liberty Protections Safeguards be on local authorities? Local Government Lawyer asked 50 adult social care lawyers for their views on the potential consequences.
SPOTLIGHT |
A claimant has successfully challenged a council’s decision to uphold its reversal of a previous decision to disregard a property owned by her mother in calculating the mother’s ability to pay care home fees.
The case of Walford, R (On the Application Of) v Worcestershire County Council [2014] EWHC 234 was the first time that the High Court had considered certain provisions in the National Assistance (Assessment of Resources) Regulations 1992.
These state that property owned by residents should be disregarded where it is occupied in whole or in part as their home by a relative of the resident who is aged 60 or over.
The claimant, Miss Glen Walford, was 67 when her mother entered a care home in 2006. She argued that her mother’s property, ‘Sunnydene’ in Stourport-on-Severn, should be disregarded because she always regarded it as her home, even if she had made temporary homes in many places in the UK and abroad during her career as a theatre director.
Worcestershire wrote to the claimant in 2011 to say that the council had decided to disregard the property in her mother’s financial assessment.
However, this position changed in March 2012 following a review of Mrs Walford’s client contribution and a query over the treatment of ‘Sunnydene’.
An official complaint and appeal against the decision lodged by the claimant’s solicitors was not upheld by the council. It wrote to the claimant to say that the local authority did not accept that Miss Walford was “permanently resident at the property at the time her mother entered long term care”.
There were two grounds of challenge:
Mr Justice Supperstone upheld the challenge. The High Court judge found that:
Mr Justice Supperstone quashed the defendant’s decision of 11 January 2013 and remitted the matter to the council for re-determination in accordance with the terms of his judgment.