Council Wins Challenge over ALMO Assessments

A council which contracted out its homelessness decision making to an ALMO acted lawfully, a court has ruled. Welwyn Hatfield Council faced appeals from three residents who were denied priority need after being assessed by the ALMO. Under the council’s constitution, ‘discretionary decision making’ powers cannot be contracted out, and the appellants had argued it was therefore unlawful to put the ALMO in charge of homelessness assessments. But Justice Robert Jay, sitting in the High Court, dismissed the challenge after finding that decisions on who is owed a homelessness duty are a ‘tightly controlled statutory scheme’, not discretionary. Read more on Inside Housing.