Public library - Duty of library authority - Defendant local authorities making changes to library services

R (on the application of Green) v Gloucestershire County Council; R (on the application of Rowe and another) v Somerset County Council: QBD (Admin) (Judge McKenna sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court): 16 November 2011

Two matters were heard together. In February and April 2011, the defendant in the first claim, the first local authority, made decisions to: (i) withdraw funding from 10 of its 38 static libraries, subject to the possibility of volunteers coming forward to run them, and to provide seven libraries with a library link which would open 12 hours a week; and (ii) withdraw its mobile library services altogether and radically reduce its expenditure on, and the opening hours of, the remaining five libraries.

In February 2011, the defendant in the second claim, the second local authority, made decisions to: (i) withdraw full funding from 11 of its 34 static libraries; and (ii) to reduce its fleet of mobile libraries from six to two and cut the opening hours of the remaining libraries by 20% and, in the case of unfunded libraries, to explore options for management by the community. The claimants in both cases were residents of the respective local areas and library users. Prior to the decisions being taken both authorities had prepared equality impact assessments (EIAs). The claimants applied for judicial review.

The claimants submitted, inter alia, that the decisions were taken in breach of the public sector equality duties under section 49A of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and section 76A of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, and, in respect of those decisions postdating 5 April 2011, section 149 of the Equality Act 2010. The application would be allowed.

Carrying out an EIA was not an invariable necessity for conforming with the public sector equality duty, but nor was evidence that an EIA had been produced evidence that ‘due regard’ had been given to the statutory equality needs. The substance of the analysis was key. The question was whether there had been a conscious directing of the mind by the decision-makers to their obligations under the legislation, and in particular to the need to exercise the duty to have due regard in substance and with vigour and based on sufficient information, appropriately analysed (see [118], [130] of the judgment).

In the instant case, it was unfortunate, but not by any means determinative, that no specific reference had been made to the statutory duties by the decision-makers, and it could not be said that the authorities had had no regard at all to their respective statutory duties in light of their evidence and the fact that they had both produced a number of EIAs. However, on the evidence, no such due regard had been had in substance. In order to discharge their respective duties, the authorities ought to have undertaken a sufficiently thorough information-gathering exercise and then properly analysed that information. Both the authorities had failed to comply with that obligation. Accordingly, the decisions were unlawful for failure to comply with the public sector equality duties (see [131], [143] of the judgment).

Helen Mountfield QC and Mathew Purchase (instructed by Public Interest Lawyers) for the claimants; James Goudie QC and Edward Capewell (instructed by legal services departments, Gloucestershire County Council and Somerset County Council) for the authorities.