Q: I am considering assisting a client with a judicial review claim against a local authority.

In what circumstances might the complaints procedure be an appropriate alternative?A: This question is important for two reasons.

First, the Legal Services Commission will generally not fund a judicial review if the client's concerns can be resolved using a complaints procedure or ombudsman scheme.

For their part, the courts will generally refuse permission for judicial review claims to proceed, or withhold remedies, where there are alternative, equally effective, remedies available which have not been used or exhausted.

Their power to do so stems from the fact that judicial review is a discretionary remedy.In practice, where there is a statutory system of appeal the court will expect it to be used unless there are exceptional circumstances (see R v IRC, ex parte Preston [1985] AC 835).

However, the remedies available through such a system must be capable of addressing the grievance (see Leech v Deputy Governor of Parkhurst Prison [1988] AC 533).

In relation to local authority decision making, the main appeal routes arise in relation to planning, homelessness decisions and payment of housing and council tax benefit.

The courts have also said fairly forcefully that the procedure for dealing with Children Act complaints ought to be exhausted before judicial review is used (see R v LB of Kingston Upon Thames, ex parte T [1994] 1 FLR 798 and R v Birmingham City Council, ex parte A [1997] 2 FLR 841).At present, there is no formal appeal structure available to individuals dissatisfied with social services decisions about the provision of community care services or payment for them.

Minor concerns about the manner in which services are provided or care planning are probably best pursued through the complaints procedure and on to the ombudsman if necessary.

Where services are to be drastically reduced or terminated -- as a result of changes in local policies, for instance -- the complaints procedure may well be less appropriate, particularly if the authority intends to implement its decision notwithstanding the ongoing complaint.By contrast, judicial review offers possible expedition and interim relie f.

Where a dispute involves clear-cut issues of law, it will normally be better dealt with by the courts, especially if the outcome will have a wider impact (see R v Devon County Council, ex parte Baker [1995] 1 All ER 73).

As regards charging, it is arguable that existing procedures fall foul of article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights because the complaints procedure lacks independence and the judicial review court cannot address both the factual and legal elements of such disputes.

This issue has been litigated in R (on the application of Beeson), ex parte Dorset County Council, which was heard in mid-September.

Judgment is expected shortly.Q: One of my male clients has been widowed.

Can he claim the same benefits as a widow?A: Yes, if he was widowed on or after 9 April 2001.

That was the date that a number of amendments to the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 (SSCBA) came into effect.

The amendments were made by the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 (WRPA).There are three benefits that he -- or a woman -- may be entitled to.

All three are subject to the deceased spouse having made the necessary national insurance contributions and all three are only paid to surviving spouses not cohabitees.

A bereavement payment is a one-off payment.

Widowed parent's allowance is a weekly benefit paid to a widow or widower who has a child living with him/her for whom he/she is entitled to claim child benefit.

It ceases on re-marriage or cohabitation.

Bereavement allowance is paid for 52 weeks after a man or woman is widowed if he/she is older than 45 but younger than the pensionable age and is not entitled to widowed parent's allowance.

Entitlement ceases on marriage or cohabitation or once the recipient reaches pensionable age.The position is different for clients widowed before 9 April.

If he has a child and meets the other qualifying conditions he will have become eligible for widowed parent's allowance as from 9 April.

This is paid at the same rate as the widowed mother's allowance which would be paid to a woman in an otherwise identical position.

He cannot claim for the period before 9 April, even though a woman could claim for that period.

Nor can he retrospectively claim a widow's payment, the one-off payment that a woman widowed before 9 April was entitled to on her husband's death.Significantly, because this is a difference in treatment between the sexes that continues after 9 April 2001, he is also unable to claim the widow's pension that a woman who is either widowed between the ages of 45 and 65 or who ceases to be entitled to claim widowed mother's allowance between those ages would be entitled to.Several widowers have argued that the difference in the way that men and women widowed before 9 April 2001 have been and continue to be treated breaches article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights taken with article 8 and article 1 of protocol 1.

(As these benefits are contributory, they are property for the purposes of this article.)A number of applications have been made to the European Court of Human Rights.

In the case of Cornwell v UK (application no.

36578/97) the government contested admissibility but reached a friendly settlement once the commission found the application admissible.

The government agreed to pay the applicant the amount that he would have been entitled to by way of widow's payment and widowed mother's allowance had he been a woman.

Our understanding is that it is the government's practice to seek to settle similar cases.

These cases no doubt played a large pa rt in the government's decision to bring in the changes effected by the WRPA.Since the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 2 October 2000 a number of men have argued this issue before domestic courts and tribunals.

These cases raise a number of points:-- Whether, in the light of the friendly settlements reached in Cornwell and similar cases and in view of the benefits agency's obligation under section 6 of the Human Rights Act to act compatibly with convention rights, the benefits agency should now retrospectively pay widow's benefits, or amounts equivalent to them, to men widowed before 9 April;-- Whether for the period from 2 October 2000 to 9 April 2001 sections of the SSCBA which provide for benefits to be paid to 'a woman who has been widowed' should be read pursuant to section 3 of the Human Rights Act to include men, thus allowing men to claim widow's benefits for that period; and,-- Whether the fact that women widowed before 9 April continue to receive a widow's pension if they meet the eligibility requirements while men do not breaches article 14.

The government seeks to justify this difference in treatment on the grounds that women will have anticipated receiving this pension and planned accordingly, while men will not.