All Articles: section 17

Immigration law, as everyone working in it knows, is not a devolved area and not likely to become so. It’s therefore easy for immigration practitioners to assume that all the important stuff is the same across the UK. That’s not the case for socia ...

Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 imposes a general duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of “children in need” in their area. To fulfil this duty section 17 gives local authorities the power to provide support, ...

Most unaccompanied child asylum seekers and refugees will be “children in need” for the purposes of the Children Act 1989. So the issue of whether or not local authorities have properly exercised their duties to provide accommodation and care freq ...

Legislation meant to make life tougher for immigrant families accessing services may instead have brought some small relief. R (U and U) v Milton Keynes Council [2017] EWHC 3050 (Admin) was an application to judicially review Milton Keynes’ decisio ...

In R (HC) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] UKSC 73 the Supreme Court decided that Zambrano carers are not eligible for non-contributory benefits which have a “right to reside” test. The benefits affected by the decision ...

Last week’s Court of Appeal judgment in R (Agyemang) v London Borough of Haringey [2017] EWCA Civ 1630 reveals familiar tactics by local authorities resisting requests for support under the Children Act 1989. The claimant-appellant, a Ghanaian ...