In R(Begum) v London Borough of Tower Hamlets (Shelter Intervening) [2024] EWHC 2279 (Admin), a homelessness judicial review claim, Genevieve Screeche-Powell acted for the successful local authority in resisting a claim of indirect sex discrimination.
Background to the judicial review
The local authority maintained a database of homeless applicants either needing or requesting a move to alternative accommodation. The database assigned priority codes to those applicants reflecting why a move was sought.
Ms Begum alleged the database was a waiting list or means of delaying suitable accommodation being provided.
Administrative Court findings
The Administrative Court dismissed the claim. It found that the local authority maintaining a database of homeless applicants:
- was not a ‘provision, criterion or practice’ (legally necessary to constitute discrimination)
- instead it was a practical tool that enabled housing officers to sift through vast quantities of information and match demand to supply
- also if it were a provision, criterion or practice, it did not put women at a disadvantage.
Claim of disadvantage to women
The court accepted the intervenor, housing and homelessness charity Shelter’s submissions that women were more likely to be placed in temporary accommodation.
However, the statistics relied upon by the claimant raised too many imponderables to make any meaningful comparison to show women were at a disadvantage.
For Ms Begum to establish that more women with children are affected by homelessness than men with children, it would be necessary to establish that a male homeless applicant with children is statistically more likely to receive an offer of permanent suitable accommodation as a result of being on the database. But there was no evidence of that.
Therefore there was no evidence of a causal link between the use of the database and the particular disadvantage claimed by Ms Begum.
Alternatively, even if it was a provision, criterion or practice and was discriminatory, it was a proportionate method of achieving a legitimate aim.
The court found the database did not operate as a waiting list or means of delaying suitable accommodation being provided.
The database’s purpose was the exact opposite. It was a tool that assisted officers in sifting through vast quantities of information.
The local authority was not in breach of its Public Sector Equality Duty.
The court accepted the database was created to facilitate in a non-discriminatory way the finding of accommodation and the local authority had discharged its duty.
Read the judgment in full in Begum, R (On the Application Of) v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2024] EWHC 2279 (Admin)