Date
8 December 2014
Link to judgment
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2014/4134.html
Discrimination ground
Disability
Summary of case
This case was a challenge to the Government’s closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF). It follows the successful challenge to the ILF brought in Stuart Bracking and others v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2013] so it was the second challenge to the proposal to close the ILF. The basis of this challenge was that further, and different, information should have been made available to the Minister to enable him to understand the ‘extent of the impact’ that closure would have on independent living.
Outcome
The Court concluded that:
The Minister had sufficient information to enable him to discharge the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and he went about the exercise with the requisite thoroughness, conscientiousness and care… this is a misconceived attempt to get the Court to ‘micro-manage’ the information gathering aspect of the PSED and should be resisted…
