R (Moseley) v Haringey London Borough Council [2014] UKSC 56
Facts
Changes to council tax support required Haringey to design a local scheme against reduced central funding. It consulted residents on a proposal requiring working-age recipients to bear part of the shortfall through reduced support. The consultation presented that reduction without adequately explaining alternative ways the council could meet the funding gap or why those options had been rejected. A resident challenged the process. After the claim failed below, the Supreme Court considered whether consultees had been given enough information to participate meaningfully in the statutory consultation.
Legal Issue
Did a lawful consultation require Haringey to explain realistic alternatives to its preferred council tax support proposal and the reasons for rejecting them in these circumstances?
Held
The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and held the consultation unlawful. Meaningful participation required enough information to allow consultees to give an intelligent response. On these facts, the documents risked presenting reduced support as an inevitable consequence of central funding cuts, concealing the council’s own choice about how the shortfall should be distributed. Briefly identifying other possible approaches and explaining their rejection was required. The judgments approached the issue through fairness and the purpose of the statutory consultation duty. They did not oblige the authority to treat every alternative as equally desirable or consult on an unlimited catalogue of options. The defect was that consultees lacked essential context for assessing the proposal actually put before them.
⭐ Legal Principle
Fair and meaningful consultation may require information about realistic alternatives and why they were rejected, where that context is necessary for an intelligent response. The content of the duty depends on the statutory scheme and circumstances; presenting a policy choice as unavoidable can make consultation unlawful.
Significance
Moseley gives substance to the requirement that consultees receive sufficient reasons and information. It shows why inviting responses does not by itself make a process fair if the presentation conceals a material choice. The case also supports careful attention to the purpose of a statutory consultation. It should not be reduced to a rule requiring every possible alternative in every consultation: relevance, the affected audience and the decision’s practical context determine what an informed response requires.
Common exam questions about this case
What was misleading about the consultation?
It presented reduced support as the consequence of the funding cut without adequately revealing that the council had choices about distributing the shortfall. Residents could not properly evaluate the preferred proposal without understanding realistic alternatives and the reasons they had been rejected. The issue was the information needed for meaningful participation.
Must an authority give every alternative equal attention?
No. Moseley required enough contextual information for an intelligent response in the circumstances. The authority could prefer one approach and explain that preference. The judgment does not require equal presentation of remote, impractical or irrelevant possibilities; the legal issue is whether consultees can engage meaningfully with the actual choice.
Where does Moseley fit in a consultation problem answer?
First identify the source and purpose of the duty to consult. Then consider whether the proposal remained open, whether adequate information and time were provided, and whether responses were conscientiously considered. Moseley is especially relevant to the information stage when the preferred proposal obscures material alternatives.