Council receives Court of Appeal judgement

Shropshire Council is committed to continuing its work to give people more choice and control over adult social care services, after a Court of Appeal judgement was handed down today (Friday 4 April 2014).

The court determined whether the council acted unlawfully in a final stage of consultation before deciding to close Hartley’s Day Centre in Shrewsbury.

In the leading judgement, Lord Justice Longmore said he acknowledged that Shropshire Council had carried out a lot of consultation work into the future of adult social care, and it was with some “regret” that he had to hold this particular aspect of the process to be unlawful.

He said:

“…it is clear that Shropshire has taken a great deal of trouble to explain its reconfiguration of adult day care and, in particular, the application of personalised budgets. The consultations undertaken in that respect were, as I have said, wide-ranging and, no doubt expensive and time-consuming to conduct.

“It has only mistaken its obligations at the last stage but, in the light of the law as I understand it to be, my own conclusion is that the omission to consult the users and relatives on the closure of Hartley’s Day Centre before it was decided to close it was indeed unlawful.”

The judgement overturned an earlier High Court decision which dismissed a judicial review brought against the council about the closure of the day centre. However, Lord Justice Longmore explicitly did not direct that the day centre be re-opened, which was something the appellants had sought.

Stephen Chandler, director of adult services at Shropshire Council, said:

“There are no winners in this situation, and it’s clearly regrettable that distress has been caused during these time-consuming and very costly court proceedings.
“We will now be reviewing what options are open to us, although it’s important to note that Hartley’s has already closed and the people who used the service have been supported to find alternative ways to spend their time, which on the whole have been successful.

“We are pleased that the court recognised the work that had been done to consult with people about the transformation of adult services, which is reassuring, but we are disappointed they felt we needed to go further in this particular case, and clearly in future we will make sure we do that.

“We remain committed to transforming services and giving people greater freedom and control over the support they receive, which is where this stemmed from in the first place.”

Read the full Court of Appeal judgement