High Court judge rules council unlawfully failed to rehouse family
Disagreements between housing officers and social workers led the London Borough of Haringey to unlawfully fail to rehouse a family, a High Court judge has ruled.
The case of KS & Ors v London Borough of Haringey [2018] EWHC 587 concerned mother KS and her children AM and JM. All three have health problems and six-year-old AM has autism, the behavioural consequences of which made it impossible for her to share a room in the family’s two bedroom flat with 11-year-old JM, who has a heart condition.
KS said Haringey’s children and young people's service (CYPS) had acted irrationally and unlawfully by failing to take steps to meet their unaddressed risks, and that the housing department failed to act in accordance with section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and section 11 of the Children Act 2004 and also failed to comply with a request by CYPS to provide suitable accommodation pursuant to the provisions of section 27 of the Children Act 1989.
The flat was “positively dangerous for AM”, the court heard as it has two outside balconies with drops of five meters to the ground, which KS had to keep permanently locked and conceal the key from AM who might otherwise enter the balcony and fall having no sense of danger.
A child and family assessment said a social worker was “very concerned that the home is firstly a safety risk” due to the balcony and was likely to become more so as AM grew older and “her needs and behaviour is more than likely to increase”.
An assessment by Homes for Haringey at the CYPS’s request agreed a three-bedroom home was needed but said such properties were scarce and suggested the risks to AM could be mitigated by locking the balcony doors and windows, and concluded the situation was not serious enough to move the family into a higher housing need band.
KS said Haringey had acted irrationally and unlawfully by both CYPS and the housing authority relying entirely upon their allocations policy and failing to either formulate a plan or to take steps to meet the unaddressed risks and unmet needs of the claimants through a multi-agency approach.
Giving judgment HHJ Walden-Smith said: “The decision made by the housing authority…either means that the conclusions of the social worker as to risk and overcrowding were not taken into account or they were taken into account but not given sufficient weight.
“The housing authority had more than an obligation to reconsider, it had an obligation to rehouse suitably.”
She added: “It is now known that the permanent locking of the balcony doors is not possible due to the fire risk. By reaching the conclusion that no change is required, the housing authority has failed to comply with the section 27 request."
Mark Smulian
