J, R (on Application of) v Worcestershire County Council

Judgment

Lady Justice King:

This appeal concerns the scope of a local authority’s power to provide services to a child in need under s17 of the Children Act 1989.

The issue for the court to determine is whether a local authority’s power to provide such services is limited to children in need who are physically present in the council’s area at the time the services are provided, or whether the power extends to the provision of services to children who, although physically present at the time of assessment, are outside the area at the time of provision.

Background

The respondent to the appeal is J who was born on the 1 st April 2010 (4 yrs 7mths). J has Down’s syndrome; he lives with his parents, his twin and his older sister. The family are seventh generation fairground travellers and part of the Gypsy community. The pattern followed by the family prior to the birth of J was to travel to, and work on, fairgrounds across the country between February and November each year, returning to the Malvern area to spend the winter in their caravan in the garden of J’s grandfather, who, in his old age, no longer travels.

J is a “child in need” if only by virtue of his disability (s17(10)(c) CA 1989). In July 2012 an assessment of J’s needs was completed by Worcestershire County Council (the council); this was followed by a Child/Young Person in Need Plan dated 24 th July 2012. Such plans are regularly reviewed and one such review took place at a meeting on the 8 th February 2013. At the meeting J’s parents expressed their wish that the services provided to them for J within the area should continue to be provided to them when they were travelling. It was recognised in the meeting that a key need for this family was the provision of a nursery placement for J for a relatively modest number of hours each week in order to give his mother some much needed respite and to allow her to spend time with her other two children: The meeting recommended that

“Social care considers funding a nursery placement of 5 hours a week and consideration is given whether these hours could “travel” with him and the family.”

On the 6 th March 2013, the council wrote to J’s parents informing them that the recommended nursery provision could not “travel” with the family. The parents were told:

“On those occasions as a travelling family, when you need to access social care services to support J and you are not living within the Worcestershire boundary, you will need to access the host lo