Target duties under the Care Act 2014 are not “mandatory relevant considerations” for discretionary service-closure decisions unless the governing power requires it

3.1 Precedents cited and how they shaped the outcome

(a) The CREEDNZ / Fewings / Friends of the Earth framework for relevant considerations

The Court anchored the analysis in the orthodox taxonomy of relevant considerations. It adopted the Supreme Court’s restatement in R (Friends of the Earth) v Secretary of State for Transport [2020] UKSC 52, approving R v Somerset County Council, ex p Fewings [1995] 1 WLR 1037. The categories (often labelled after CREEDNZ Inc v Governor General [1981] NZLR 172) are:

1. Mandatory considerations identified expressly or impliedly by the statute (failure = invalidity).
2. Forbidden considerations identified by statute.
3. Discretionary considerations the decision-maker may take into account; failure to take one into account is unlawful only if it is so “obviously material” that omission is irrational (Wednesbury).

This framework was decisive on Ground 2: to establish a category 1 duty to consider the Care Act provisions, the claimants needed to identify the relevant statutory source of the council’s power/duty to make the closure decision and show that statute clearly required regard to those Care Act duties. They did not.

(b) “Target” duties and the risk of converting them into individual entitlements: R (Ahmad) v Newham LBC

The High Court had relied on the distinction (from Lady Hale in R (Ahmad) v Newham LBC [2009] UKHL 14) between (i) duties owed to individuals and (ii) broad, population-level “target” duties. The Court of Appeal did not disturb that characterisation: sections 2, 3 and 5 of the Care Act were treated as broad strategic duties.

The practical significance of Ahmad in this appeal was cautionary: courts should be “on guard” against re-engineering general duties into case-by-case enforceable obligations whenever an individual is adversely affected by a public decision.

(c) What R (DAT) v West Berkshire Council does (and does not) establish

The claimants placed heavy weight on R (DAT) v West Berkshire Council [2016] EWHC 1876 (Admin), arguing it supports a broader proposition: that decision-makers must be “helped” to address statutory duties “relevant” to a decision, even where those duties arise elsewhere.

The Court of Appeal rejected that reading. It emphasised that DAT concerned statutory provisions that were expressly engaged and imposed legal requirements on the decision under challenge. DAT is about how mandatory considerations must be put before members (accurate statutory language/substance), not about when duties become mandatory relevant considerations absent statutory footing.

The Court added an important constitutional warning: any interpretation of DAT that allowed “mandatory” considerations to arise without a statutory basis would contradict Supreme Court authority and impermissibly collapse category 1 into category 3.

(d) Other cited authorities

• R (Khatun & others) v Newham LBC [2004] EWCA Civ 55, [2005] QB 37: used (via the High Court) to confirm that the intensity and manner of inquiry into relevant factors is for the decision-maker, subject to Wednesbury review.
• R (F) v Surrey County Council [2023] EWHC 980 (Admin), [2023] 4 WLR 45: relied on below for handling factual disputes in JR. The Court of Appeal did not need to engage in depth, because it considered the claimants’ key factual contention rested on inadmissible/non-expert opinion.
• R (SARCP) v Stoke County Council [2025] EWHC 18 (Admin), [2025] PTSR 1311: distinguished as a case where section 5 Care Act duties were part of the applicable statutory framework for the decision being taken (pricing paid to care providers), unlike the present non-statutory closure decision.

3.2 Legal reasoning

(a) Ground 1: evidence about “crisis prevention” and the Service’s role

The claimants sought to recharacterise the Service as operating in practice to prevent mental health crisis and thereby reduce risks of self-harm/suicide; that characterisation was used to argue the preventive and wellbeing-oriented Care Act duties were obviously material.

The Court of Appeal’s core move was evidential: it treated lay service-user statements about mental health effects as opinion evidence requiring expertise. Without expert evidence, those assertions were inadmissible or carried no weight. Even if accepted as true for those individuals, they could not displace the council’s broader evaluative understanding of the Service’s function across three centres and the wider ecosystem of NHS/voluntary provision.

This approach matters beyond this case: where a public law challenge turns on clinical or quasi-clinical causal claims (e.g., whether a service “prevents crisis”), the court signalled that litigants will usually need proper expert evidence if they want the court to treat such claims as a foundation for unlawfulness.

(b) Ground 2: why the Care Act provisions were not mandatory relevant considerations

The Court’s reasoning is uncompromisingly orthodox: a “mandatory relevant consideration” must be mandated by the statute governing the decision. That requires:

1. identifying the statutory function/power being exercised; and
2. showing that statute—expressly or by necessary implication—requires consideration of the alleged factor (here, the Care Act target duties).

The claimants did neither. They accepted the council was not exercising Care Act functions and did not identify another statutory basis for the closure decision that imported the Care Act duties. As a result, the legal test could not be satisfied.

The Court also made clear that a “relevance + need to help members” argument (derived from DAT) cannot create mandatory considerations in the absence of statutory footing. To allow it would radically expand judicial review, forcing public bodies to trawl through potentially “relevant” duties across the statute book whenever taking discretionary decisions.

(c) Ground 3: why it was not irrational to omit reference to the Care Act duties

The Court accepted (without finally deciding) that there may be rare cases where an unengaged target duty could nonetheless be so obviously material that ignoring it would be irrational.

But this was not such a case. The context included:

• the Service was not statutory social care provision and most users did not have eligible needs under the Care Act;
• closure would align North Devon with the rest of the county (no equivalent service elsewhere);
• alternative provision existed through NHS urgent pathways and voluntary/community services (including via the Devon Mental Health Alliance and primary care multi-agency teams); and
• the Care Act duties were general in terms and, on the accepted premise, not engaged or at risk of breach by this decision.

The Court additionally relied on a pragmatic point: the claimants accepted that, had the report mentioned the Care Act duties, it could properly have also advised members they were not engaged and would not be breached. That concession undercut the claim that it was irrational not to mention them at all.

(d) Section 31(2A) Senior Courts Act 1981 (highly likely/no substantial difference)

The council argued that even if there was unlawfulness, relief should be refused under section 31(2A) because it was highly likely the outcome would not have been substantially different. The Court did not decide the point, but noted there was “force” in it in light of the claimants’ acceptance that any reference to the Care Act duties could have been accompanied by advice that they were not engaged.

This signals that where claimants argue for “procedural” unlawfulness based on omission of broad statutory language, they may face a robust section 31(2A) response unless they can show a realistic pathway to a different substantive outcome.

3.3 Impact

• Reinforcement of statutory anchoring: The decision strengthens a disciplined approach to “mandatory relevant considerations”: they do not arise from free-floating notions of relevance; they must be tied to the statute governing the decision.
• Containment of “target duty” litigation: Claimants cannot readily transform Care Act Part 1 “target” duties into a general requirement that councils cite and discuss them whenever taking budget-driven decisions about discretionary services.
• Evidence discipline in JR: Where unlawfulness is said to depend on mental health causation (e.g., a service “prevents crisis”), courts may insist on expert evidence and discount lay opinion, even if sincere.
• Practical governance: Reports to members are not required to list every potentially resonant statutory aspiration; what matters is whether the statute governing the decision requires particular matters to be considered, and whether omission of other matters crosses the high irrationality threshold.