AC-2025-LON-001008 - [2025] EWHC 2568 (Admin)

The claimant, who is now aged 15 years, seeks judicial review of the decision of the defendant’s Children’s Services Care department (“CSC”) on 20 March 2025 to terminate (or, more properly, not to reinstate) her social care direct payments. The single ground of challenge is that the decision was irrational in the sense that it lacked process rationality. Permission was granted by Mr Jason Beer KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, on 1 July 2025. By a previous order, dated 4 April 2025, Mould J appointed the claimant’s mother as her litigation friend in these proceedings and granted both the claimant and her mother anonymity. I shall refer to them simply as “the claimant” and “the claimant’s mother”, respectively, and shall substitute those designations for any other in the documentation cited.

I am grateful to Mr Persey, counsel for the claimant, and Mr Harrop-Griffiths, counsel for the defendant, for their well-focused submissions.