Barnet seeks to leave to appeal warden services case

Barnet Council this week applied for permission to appeal a recent High Court decision that quashed its plans to end a residential warden’s service in sheltered accommodation.

Under Barnet’s proposals, the residential service tied to each sheltered housing scheme would be replaced by a new ’floating’ service covering the whole borough.

In December 2009, Judge Milwyn Jarman QC threw out Barnet’s plans, and also those of Portsmouth City Council to introduce similar changes.

The judge said members of Barnet’s cabinet had not fully considered its duties under the Disability Discrimination Act, although he did acknowledge that the council had consulted widely and changed its policy following that consultation.

Explaining the decision to seek permission to appeal, Lynne Hillan, Leader of Barnet Council, said: “We are obviously respectful of the judge’s comments but the judgment has such a potentially wide-ranging impact on the way councils do business that we have no alternative but to keep the option of an appeal open.”

She repeated the council’s concern – expressed immediately after the ruling – that the judgment suggested “a council has to demonstrate that every member, not just officers, involved in the decision making gave full and stated consideration to all relevant legislation and guidance. This raises profound issues for the working of local government.”

Councillor Hillan added: “In developing our service we will, as always, consider the needs of disabled people in the borough, but we do need to make sure we are making services open to all disabled people in the borough, not only those in one type of accommodation.”

The original High Court ruling was reported in some quarters as being a major blow to Barnet’s ‘Easycouncil’ model, but as Peter Keith-Lucas of Bevan Brittan recently pointed out in Local Government Lawyer, the judgement “does not support the rhetoric”.