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High Court challenge over funding for DoLS cases fails
From Community Care -
Mr Justice Garnham rejected the councils’ argument that health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s ongoing failure to provide adequate funding for the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) had both created an “unacceptable risk of illegality” and breached a government agreement on funding ‘new burdens’ on councils.
Liverpool, Nottinghamshire, Richmond and Shropshire councils brought the judicial review. Government funding for DoLS has been maintained at around £34m a year. The group claimed local authorities in England needed between £450m and £600m a year extra to cope with the surge of DoLS cases triggered by the Supreme Court’s landmark ‘Cheshire West’ ruling in March 2014.
The judge rejected the councils’ arguments and refused their request that he issue a court order demanding Hunt remove the “unacceptable risk of illegality” by increasing funding.
NB - we don’t routinely do summaries of cases relating to Deprivation of Liberty in our community care caselaw section but thought this was an interesting case to bring to people’s attention…