Disability Charities Welcome Court Ruling

Charities have welcomed a supreme court ruling which could enable more people with disabilities to win access to care services.

The ruling came following a legal challenge to a care package offered by a council to a young disabled man.  Cambridgeshire Council offered the man a care package worth £85,000 a year but an independent social worker had costed his care at £157,000 a year.

While the judges unanimously rejected the challenge on the grounds the council had acted irrationally in making the offer Lord Wilson, who delivered the verdict, said councils must make it clearer to service users how a proposed care package would meet their eligible needs.

Lord Wilson said: “It is crucial each case is costed in a reasonable degree of detail so that a judgement can be made whether the indicative sum is too high, too low or about right.”

More Transparent

Charities hope the ruling will make the care funding decisions of councils more open and transparent.  Councils will now be required to carry out a full assessment, even if they later decide they cannot fund the package.

The decision was described as “potentially the biggest community care ruling for 15 years” by solicitors Irwin Mitchell, acting on behalf of four charities involved in the case.

Mark Lever, chief executive of the National Autistic Society, said: “The fact that the court recognised the assessment for social care should not be based on a ‘computer says so’ system is an important step forward.”