Social Welfare Updates

Our social welfare pages provide bite-sized updates on recent case-law and policy, written by Garden Court barristers specialising in adult social care, children’s services, Court of Protection (health and welfare), housing and homelessness, and welfare benefits.

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Latest Updates

Garden Court Chambers | Monday 1 November 2010

2010 10 Housing

Re MIG (Incapacitated Adult) and MEG (Incapacitated Minor), Surrey County Council v CA[2010] EWHC 785 (Fam) (Parker J): MIG (aged 18) is placed with a foster family. MEG (aged 17) is in a small residential home. They have moderate to severe learning disabilities. They are under continuous supervision and control and both lack capacity to […]

Garden Court Chambers | Monday 1 November 2010

2010 10 Incapacity

RT v LT and a local authority[2010] EWHC 1910 Fam (Sir Nichols Wall, President): on the evidence a 23-year-old woman lacked the capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 to decide where she should live and what contact she should have with members of her family. The President said: “I basically agree …… that what […]

Garden Court Chambers | Monday 1 November 2010

2010 10 Mental Health

LC v DHIH & SOSJ & CUK [2010] UKUT 319 (AAC) (Levenson J): The Upper Tribunal held the Welsh MHT decision not to discharge the patient, following a deferred conditional discharge, was inadequately reasoned: (i) the MHT took account of matters to which it had not referred in its original decision; (ii) in relation to […]

Garden Court Chambers | Monday 1 November 2010

2010 10 Children

Case Law R (SO) v Barking and Dagenham LBC [2010] EWCA EWCA Civ 1101 (Jacob LJ, Leveson LJ, Tomlinson LJ): "Other assistance" in S23C(4)(c) of the Children Act 1989 includes a power to provide acocmmodation. The local authority was not entitled to take into account the possibility of support from the National Asylum Support Service […]

Garden Court Chambers | Monday 1 November 2010

2010 10 Adult Care

R (Buckinghamshire CC) v Kingston RBC and others [2010] EWHC 1703 Admin (Wyn Williams J): local social services authority A was not under a legal duty to notify or consult with local social services authority B, before providing care services to a service user, that would result in the service user living in supported accommodation […]

Garden Court Chambers | Friday 8 October 2010

Practice Note: The test for ‘Virtually Unable to Walk’ – Some Common Errors

Practice Note DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE THE HIGHER RATE MOBILITY COMPONENT THE TEST FOR VIRTUALLY UNABLE TO WALK – SOME COMMON ERRORS The disability test for the higher rate mobility component has been described as “perhaps the most litigated area in social security law”(R(DLA) 4/03 para 19). The statutory test in regulation 12(1)(a)(ii) of the Social […]

Garden Court Chambers | Friday 1 October 2010

Accommodating Privately Fostered Migrant Children

Where a local authority is notified of a child from abroad under 16 who is being privately fostered questions can arise as to the duties that then arise for that local authority. This is likely to occur where a foreign national child is brought to the United Kingdom by a parent, a relative or an […]

Garden Court Chambers | Friday 24 September 2010

Migrants

On 24 April 2015 the DWP issued guidance in relation to removing the right of EEA nationals and their family members to claim universal credit. The new guidance provides advice to decision makers on the Universal Credit (EEA Jobseekers) Amendment Regulations 2015(SI.No.546/2015) which, from 10 June 2015, provide that EEA nationals who are jobseekers and […]

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