“Ms Taylor certainly has a mental disorder, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder that is very severe and has almost eliminated her ability to live an independent and functional life. All accounts relating to Ms Taylor describe her social circumstances and lifestyle as extremely chaotic. She has had quite a traumatic and unfortunate sequence of life events. Her history strongly suggests her chronic use of alcohol and illegal drugs may actually be a method of coping with the psychological, emotional and physical trauma she has experienced.”
“Living independently will not provide the level of support and structure needed to address her use of illegal drugs. To benefit from treatment, she will need to be in highly-supported accommodation in the community and engage with a mental health team with resources to engage and manage patients with complex needs.”
“Therefore, looking at all the evidence before me, although Ms Hamilton is not here to give me her evidence about it, I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that: a. Ms Hamilton was aware of her public sector equality duty in carrying out the initial impact assessment. That is apparent from the documentation. b. Mrs Hamilton appears to have carried out the initial Equality Act assessment based on her knowledge at the time, but in fact that knowledge was wrong, as would have been apparent from further investigations of the information held by the claimant. c. It became apparent to Mrs Hamilton by June 2018 that her knowledge of the defendant's mental health was wrong, and that she potentially did have diagnoses the effect of which amounted to a disability. d. Mrs Hamilton took her public sector equality duty seriously, and was aware of the fact that it is a continuing duty, by seeking to make enquiries to carry out a further assessment in light of the new knowledge that she then had. e. Mrs Hamilton did exercise the public sector equality duty in substance and with rigour by asking specific questions and seeking information from the various agencies that the defendant had engaged with, namely Turning Point and the Common Entry, as to what specific implications an eviction would have on this defendant given her particular vulnerabilities.”
“The impact of the PSED is universal in application to the functions of public authorities, but its application will differ from case to case, depending upon the function being exercised and the facts of the case. The cases to which we have been referred on this appeal have ranged across a wide field, from a Ministerial decision to close a national fund supporting independent living by disabled persons (Bracking) through to individual decisions in housing cases such as the present. One must be careful not to read the judgments (including the judgment in Bracking) as though they were statutes. The decision of a Minister on a matter of national policy will engage very different considerations from that of a local authority official considering whether or not to take any particular step in ongoing proceedings seeking to recover possession of a unit of social housing.”
“Application of the PSED (i) When a public sector landlord is contemplating taking or enforcing possession proceedings in circumstances in which a disabled person is liable to be affected by such decision, it is subject to the PSED. Nature and scope of the PSED (ii) The PSED is not a duty to achieve a result but a duty to have due regard to the need to achieve the results identified in s.149. Thus when considering what is due regard, the public sector landlord must weigh the factors relevant to promoting the objects of the section against any material countervailing factors. In housing cases, such countervailing factors may include, for example, the impact which the disabled person's behaviour, in so far as is material to the decision in question, is having upon others (e.g. through drug dealing or other antisocial behaviour). The PSED is "designed to secure the brighter illumination of a person's disability so that, to the extent that it bears upon his rights under other laws it attracts a full appraisal". Making inquires (iii) The public sector landlord is not required in every case to take active steps to inquire into whether the person subject to its decision is disabled and, if so, is disabled in a way relevant to the decision. Where, however, some feature or features of the information available to the decision maker raises a real possibility that this might be the case then a duty to make further enquiry arises. The importance of substance over form (iv) The PSED must be exercised in substance, with rigour and with an open mind and should not be reduced to no more than a "tick-box" exercise. Continuing nature of the duty (v) The PSED is a continuing one and is thus not discharged once and for all at any particular stage of the decision making process. Thus the requirement to fulfil the PSED does not elapse even after a possession order (whether on mandatory or discretionary grounds) is granted and before it has been enforced. However, the PSED consequences of enforcing an order ought already to have been adequately considered by the decision maker before the order is sought and, in most cases, in the absence of any material change in circumstances (which circumstances may include the decision maker's state of knowledge of the disability), the continuing nature of the duty will not mandate further explicit reconsideration. The timing of formal consideration of the PSED (vi) Generally, the public sector landlord must assess the risk and extent of any adverse impact and the ways in which such risk may be eliminated before seeking and enforcing possession and not merely as a "rear-guard action" following a concluded decision. However, cases will arise in which the landlord initially neither knew nor ought reasonably to have known of any relevant disability. The duty to "have due regard" will then only take on any substance when the disability becomes or ought to have become apparent. In such cases, the lateness of the knowledge may impact on the discharge of the PSED. For example, cases may arise in which countervailing interests justify a less formal PSED assessment than would otherwise have been appropriate. Thus a tenant whose anti-social conduct has already been adversely affecting his neighbours for a considerable time but whose disability is raised at the eleventh hour may well find that the discharge of the PSED does not necessarily mandate a postponement of the date or enforcement of a possession order. Of course, the obligation to have "due regard" still arises but the result of the discharge of that obligation may well be less favourable to the person affected where, through delay, the landlord's options have been limited and the rights and reasonable expectations of others have assumed a more pressing character. Each case will, of course, depend on its own facts. Recording the discharge of the duty (vii) An important evidential element in the demonstration of the discharge of the PSED is the recording of the steps taken by the decision maker in seeking to meet the statutory requirements. Although there is no duty to make express written reference to the regard paid to the relevant duty, recording the existence of the duty and the considerations taken into account in discharging it serves to reduce the scope for later argument. Nevertheless, cases may arise in which a conscientious decision maker focussing on the impact of disability may comply with the PSED even where he is unaware of its existence as a separate duty or of the terms of section 149. The court must not simply substitute its own views for that of the landlord (viii) The court must be satisfied that the public sector landlord has carried out a sufficiently rigorous consideration of the PSED but, once thus satisfied, is not entitled to substitute its own views of the relative weight to be afforded to the various competing factors informing its decision. It is not the court's function to review the substantive merits of the result of the relevant balancing act. The concept of 'due regard' requires the court to ensure that there has been a proper and conscientious focus on the statutory criteria, but if that is done, the court cannot interfere with the decision simply because it would have given greater weight to the equality implications of the decision than did the decision maker. In short, the decision maker must be clear precisely what the equality implications are when he puts them in the balance, and he must recognise the desirability of achieving them, but ultimately it is for him to decide what weight they should be given in the light of all relevant factors.”
“What is important is that a racial equality impact assessment should be an integral part of the formation of a proposed policy, not justification for its adoption.”
“Mr Read submitted that the possession order should be set aside and the possession proceedings dismissed. I can see no proper basis for such an order. Even though, on the basis on which I proceed, the council was in breach of its duty before the proceedings were started, it would be open to it to remedy that breach by giving proper consideration to the question at any later stage, including now in the light of our decision.”