| HOUSING — Residential Care Homes — Registration — Refusal of application for registration as person fit to manage particular care home — Appeal to Care Standards Tribunal after withdrawal of employment offer at particular premises — Whether application for registration required to relate to specific establishment — Whether appeal precluded by specific establishment ceasing to be available — Care Standards Act 2000, ss 11(1), 12(3), 13(2), 14(1), 17(1) — Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults and Care Standards Tribunal Regulations 2002, reg 4A
Welsh Ministers v Care Standards Tribunal and another; [2008] WLR (D) 8
QBD: Davis J: [2008] EWHC 49 (Admin) 24th January 2008)
The registration of an individual as a manager under Part II of the Care Standards Act 2000 had to relate to a specific establishment or agency. It was not necessarily the case however that all appeals to the Care Standards Tribunal concerning applications for registration as a manager where the premises in question had ceased to be available to the applicant should be struck out as being misconceived or having no reasonable prospect of success.
Davis J so held when dismissing an appeal by the Welsh Ministers against the decision of the Deputy President of the first respondent, the Care Standards Tribunal, of 1 October 2007 refusing to strike out an appeal brought by the second respondent, H, against the refusal by the National Assembly for Wales (now succeeded for present purposes by the Welsh Ministers) of her application for registration as a manager in respect of a particular care home under the provisions of the Care Standards Act 2000.
After the issue of H’s appeal the care home withdrew their offer of employment in respect of which the application for registration had been made. On her appeal against that refusal, the Welsh Ministers as respondents to that appeal, sought to strike out the appeal on grounds that, since there was no longer an offer of employment at the premises concerned, her appeal was misconceived or had no real prospect of success.
DAVIS J said that it was clear that the registration of an individual as manager under Part II of the 2000 Act had to be related to a specific establishment or agency. Ss 11(1), 12(3), 13(2), 14(1) and 17(1) of the 2000 Act, taken also in the context of Part II read as a whole, showed that registrations must relate to specific premises. It was not helpful to describe the registration requirements as either “person specific” or “premises specific” as though they were mutually exclusive. An individual had to be a person who was fit to manage “a” care home, and in addition had to be fit to manage “the” care home in question. It was not necessarily the case however that in all appeals to the tribunal concerning applications for registration as a manager where the premises in question had ceased to be available to the applicant, such appeals should be struck out as being misconceived or having no reasonable prospect of success. Such a fixed approach would not sit well with the discretionary power to strike out an appeal expressly conferred by reg 4A of the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults and Care Standards Tribunal Regulations 2002 (SI 2002/816). To strike out a claim summarily was a strong thing to do and such power had to be exercised with appropriate caution, particularly where the ability to secure employment was affected by the decision challenged. Despite there being no specific premises available H had prospects of offers of employment elsewhere as a care home manager and the Deputy President had been entitled to take that into account and to conclude that there was a practical advantage in allowing the appeal to continue. Since his overall approach was otherwise legitimate, it followed that no error of law was shown and there was no other basis for interfering with the decision to refuse to strike out.
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