Judges reject legal challenge over system operated by council for allocating temporary accommodation including ‘transfer list’
The Court of Appeal (Civil Division) has ruled that an appellant did not suffer discrimination because of the way in which the London Borough of Tower Hamlets operated its system for allocating temporary accommodation.
- Details
Lord Justice Lewis said in the judgment there had been no breach of section 19 or section 149 Equality Act 2010 in the case brought by the appellant.
She claimed she had been subject to indirect discrimination because Tower Hamlets applied a provision, criterion or practice (PCP) in its system of allocating temporary accommodation to homeless applicants, which included a 'transfer list' through which homeless applicants were provided with accommodation.
The appellant said this process put women, or women with children, at a particular disadvantage as compared with men, or men with children, which Tower Hamlets could not show was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
David Pittaway KC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, had dismissed these claims, finding the inclusion of information on a database did not amount to a PCP, did not put women at a particular disadvantage and it was anyway a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
The appellant argued that Mr Pittaway had failed to properly identify the PCPs relied upon and in so doing misdirected himself, erred in concluding that the operation of a database is not a PCP for the purposes of section 19 of the 2010 Act; erred in concluding that the PCP relied upon did not place women at a ‘particular disadvantage’; erred in finding no causal link between the operation of the database transfer list and remaining in unsuitable accommodation); was wrong to find that the creation and operation of the database (transfer list) was justified; misdirected himself as to the requirements of the public sector equality duty.
In February 2021, the appellant discovered that she was pregnant, and was required to leave her family home. She applied for assistance in May 2021 and was given a self-contained studio flat.
Her son was born in October 2021 and in June 2022, she complained to Tower Hamlets that the accommodation was unsuitable being now overcrowded. She gave birth to her second child in September 2023.
The council accepted she was eligible for assistance, had priority need and had not become homeless intentionally.
Tower Hamlets said it operated a database known as the transfer list for households in unsuitable accommodation who required an immediate move and for those that wished to be considered for alternative accommodation if something suitable became available.
In August 2023, the appellant issued a claim for judicial review to challenge Tower Hamlets’ failure to provide suitable alternative accommodation after it had found that her accommodation was unsuitable in October 2022
She was allocated suitable accommodation in which she still lives but maintained her claim for indirect discrimination.
Lewis LJ said: “I consider that the maintenance of a database on which information is stored is not, of itself, likely to be a PCP. The inclusion of information with a view to the management, organisation and subsequent use of that information is unlikely, of itself, to amount to a PCP. It may, in isolation, be seen as a ‘practice’…but it is not a practice or state of affairs that of itself differentiates between different groups of persons.”
He said the various statistical analyses put forward did not “evidence circumstances from which it can be inferred that women with a child or children, or women generally, are being put at a particular disadvantage as compared with men”.
Nor did the evidence show circumstances “from which it could legitimately be inferred that being on the database and in unsuitable accommodation affects a greater proportion of women than men”.
The appellant contended that Tower Hamlets failed to comply with its obligation under section 149 to have due regard in the exercise of its functions to the equality matters specified there.
Lewis LJ said: “The short answer in the present case is that it is clear from the nature of the function being exercised, and the actions that the respondent undertook, that it did have regard to the equality considerations specified in section 149 of the Act when exercising its functions in relation to the appellant during the material time.”
He dismissed the appeal and Lord Justice Cobb and Lord Justice Newey both agreed.
Mark Smulian
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22-10-2025 4:00 pm
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