Barry, R (on the Application of) v. Gloucestershire C.C. & Anor

Factual and Procedural Background

The Respondent, an 82-year-old disabled man, lived alone after discharge from The Hospital in 1992. An assessment by the social services department of Company A (the local authority) concluded he required home-care visits twice a week and meals-on-wheels four days a week. These services were provided under section 2(1) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970.

In 1994 Company A lost approximately £2.5 million in central funding. Relying on reduced resources, it withdrew the Respondent’s cleaning and laundry services and tightened its general “eligibility criteria.” The Respondent sought judicial review.

The Divisional Court declared that services could not be withdrawn solely for lack of funds without a lawful reassessment, but accepted that resources could be considered when assessing needs. The Court of Appeal (majority) reversed that aspect, holding that resources are irrelevant at the assessment stage. Company A and Company B (the Secretary of State) appealed to the ultimate appellate court.

Legal Issues Presented

1. Whether, under section 2(1) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, a local authority may take its own financial resources into account when assessing the needs of an individual disabled person.
2. Consequentially, whether the duty to provide services under section 2(1) is absolute once an authority is “satisfied” that arrangements are necessary, or whether that state of satisfaction itself can legitimately reflect budgetary constraints.

Arguments of the Parties

Appellants' Arguments (Company A and Company B)

• Section 2(1) must be read in the wider context of section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948, under which resources are an accepted consideration; the same principle should apply at the assessment stage.
• “Need” is a relative concept. Determining necessity for welfare services inevitably involves balancing cost against benefit; ignoring resources would require authorities to set unrealistically high standards.
• The statutory framework of community care (particularly section 47 of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990) recognises resource-based prioritisation; excluding resources for the disabled would create an anomalous regime.

Respondent's Arguments

• Section 2(1) imposes an individual, personal duty almost unique in community care law; once a person’s needs are professionally assessed, the authority must meet them irrespective of budgetary pressures.
• Allowing resource considerations would enable authorities to raise eligibility thresholds at will, reducing an express duty to a discretionary power and defeating Parliamentary intent.
• “Need” should be assessed by reference to objective standards of civilised society, not to the fluctuating finances of individual authorities.

Table of Precedents Cited

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The panel identified three statutory “stages” under section 2(1): (1) assessment of individual needs; (2) decision whether it is necessary for the authority to act; (3) performance of the duty. All judges agreed that, once stage (2) is reached, the duty in stage (3) is absolute. The dispute concerned stage (1).

Majority opinion (Judge Nicholls, Judge Hoffmann, Judge Clyde):

• Assessing needs “in a vacuum” is impossible; decisions on the type and frequency of services require reference to cost.
• The local social-services committee is the proper body to set eligibility criteria. In doing so it must weigh the benefits of each service against its cost to the authority; therefore available resources are an inherent and permissible factor.
• Permitting resource-sensitive criteria does not reduce the statutory duty to a discretion; Wednesbury principles continue to police unreasonable under-provision.
• No workable alternative yardstick (e.g., a hypothetical “reasonable authority” with undefined funds) was identified.

Dissenting opinion (Judge Lloyd, Judge Steyn):

• “Need” is concerned with what is essential for ordinary living, measured by contemporary social standards, and is independent of the authority’s bank balance.
• Allowing resources to dictate eligibility collapses the duty into a mere power and undermines Parliament’s intent to treat disability as a special case.
• Eligibility criteria published by authorities make no reference to resources, demonstrating that needs assessments can be resource-free in practice.

Holding and Implications

APPEAL ALLOWED.

The court declared that, when assessing an individual’s needs under section 2(1) of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, a local authority may lawfully take its overall financial resources into account.

Implications: Local authorities may set or revise eligibility criteria to reflect budgetary realities, provided their decisions are not irrational. The ruling narrows the individual right previously recognised by the Court of Appeal and confirms that resource sensitivity is embedded in community-care legislation rather than confined to post-assessment service delivery. No new precedent was set on broader constitutional or human-rights issues, but the decision significantly influences the administration of social-care budgets across the jurisdiction.