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In the context of a recent judicial review case, the Court of Appeal has delivered, on the one hand, a powerful weapon for people with disabilities who need social services, but, on the other, managerial implications which are bound to be keeping budget holders awake at night. The final outcome of the case — due for hearing before the Lords at some point in the next year — may well have wider implications for changes to social services legislation generally. The significance of this case for local authorities, practitioners and users of community care services is analysed and commented upon in this article. Further, the interplay between the concept of statutory discretion and the emergent legal doctrine of substantive legitimate expectation is considered, and its significance for social services attitudes and practice is articulated.

This article examines the existing legal framework for safeguarding in the context of the Putting People First (Ministers et al, 2007) agenda, in order to consider the risks of abuse in a new era of arms' length care management, and the employment of non‐regulated workers. It examines how these risks may be adequately and proactively managed through attention to the requirements of the current legal framework, as long as it is understood that the current legal framework should be pervaded, by now, by the principles and fall‐back remedies offered by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (HM Government, 2005a).

Government policy for vulnerable people has long been to encourage as many people as possible out of care homes and into supported accommodation. This article seeks to explore some of the unforeseen legal difficulties arising out of this trend. Two have already become very apparent: first, where the question of ordinary residence arises, with regard to which authority is liable for the purchase of the additional domiciliary care, and second, for residents who may be thought to lack capacity to make a contract for the tenancy which underpins the whole arrangement. The article begins by describing two quite different arrangements for providing accommodation and support.

Rights of appeal against decisions of the new Tribunal are not found in the 1993 Education Act. The statute which creates such a right appears to give a choice of appeal route, and does not refer at all to the distinct legal procedure of judicial review. But recent cases have effectively limited rights of appeal from the Tribunal, to an appeal to the High Court on a point of law only, via a particular procedure, and precluded the alternative routes. However, even the way in which the cases are still being indexed and written about, in journals and digests, may perpetuate confusion among practitioners. The writer has heard, anecdotally, that Tribunals themselves are often insisting on being made parties to appeals, and, indeed, SENTs continue to appear in the books as respondents to appeals. The implications for local authority legal and education officers, and for advice workers, particularly as to time limits and legal aid, are considered in this article.

Research can be an influential driver in raising care home standards and the well-being and human rights of residents. This paper aims to present a case for how a relational research capacity building programme could advance this agenda.

This study uses Axel Honneth’s Recognition Theory as a lens through which to explore organisational and institutional factors (such as research capacity and investment) that can either enable or limit “recognition” in the context of research in care homes. This paper draws on recent evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and worldwide, to argue that such a relational capacity building agenda is even more pressing in the current context, and that it resonates with evidence from existing relational capacity building initiatives.

A lack of relevant research arguably contributed to the crisis experienced by the care home sector early in the pandemic, and there are only tentative signs that residents, care home providers and staff are now informing the COVID-19 research agenda. Evidence from pre COVID-19 and insights from Honneth’s Recognition Theory suggest that relational approaches to building research capacity within the care home sector can better generate evidence to inform practice.

This is a novel application of recognition theory to research in the care home sector. Drawing on theory, as well as evidence, has enabled the authors to provide a rationale as to why relationship-based research capacity building in care homes warrants further investment.