UKAJI April 2019 round-up

Here is UKAJI’s administrative justice round-up for April 2019. If you have any information or events to include in this month’s summary or any future updates, please contact Lee Marsons on lm17598@essex.ac.uk.

UKAJI blog posts

• Margaret Doyle (University of Essex, UKAJI, Domar Mediation) published a blog concerning her report A Place at the Table: A report on young people’s participation in resolving disputes about special educational needs and disabilities
• Carolyn Hirst (Hirstworks), Christian Gill (University of Glasgow) and Jane Williams (Queen Margaret University) published an update on their research project Being Complained About. The initial UKAJI post can be found here.

Research

• Carlow Harlow & Richard Rawlings, Procedural and Automation: Challenges to the Values of Administrative Law in E Fisher, J King & A Young (eds), The Foundations of Public Law (in honour of Paul Craig) (Oxford University Press, 2019). SSRN version can be found here;
• The Ombudsman Association launched a new research resource collating jurisprudence from the courts on ombuds decisions. It can be found at Ombudsman Case Law Database. This project was carried out by Richard Kirkham (University of Sheffield) and funded by the Nuffield Foundation;
• Paul Daly (University of Cambridge) posted two blog pieces on Big Data in Public Administration: Rewards, Risk and Responses and Artificial Administration in Action: the Robo-Debt Scandal;
• Joe Tomlinson (KCL, Public Law Project, ‘The User-Preference Principle in Administrative Justice’ (April 11, 2019). Available on SSRN here;
• Lisa Vanhala (UCL) & Jacqui Kinghan (UCL), ‘A case study of the Personal Independence Payments legal challenge’ (The Baring Foundation and Lankelly Chase), available here.

Reports

• The Office of the Independent Adjudicator published its Annual Report 2018;
• The Patients Association published its Annual Report 2018;
• The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration released a report following an inspection of the policies and practices of the Home Office’s Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Systems relating to charging and fees.

Cases

• The Administrative Court refused permission to pursue a judicial review based on the Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 in R (B) v Neath & Port Talbot County Borough Council (unreported). Details provided by Sarah Nason (University of Bangor) here;
• R (AD and others) v London Borough of Hackney [2019] EWHC 943 (Admin) related to a judicial review about Hackney’s approach to SEND funding and EHCPs.

Parliamentary affairs

• The House of Commons Education Select Committee held an evidence session entitled Ofsted, Care Quality Commission and the Independent Parental Special Education Advice questioned. Witnesses included Gill Jones (Deputy Director of Early Education, Ofsted), Nigel Thompson (Head of Children’s Health and Justice, CQC), Michael King (LGSCO), and Imogen Jolley (head of Public Law at Simpson Millar);
• The Education Select Committee further held an evidence session with the National Schools Commissioner, Dominic Herrington;
• The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee launched an inquiry as a follow-up to the PHSO report ‘Ignoring the alarms’;
• The Women and Equalities Committee released a report related to the discrimination suffered by Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities;
• The Government provided an update to the House of Commons on the compensation scheme administered for victims of the Windrush Generation scandal;
• The Government updated its guidance provided to victims on the Windrush Generation scandal.

Ombuds affairs

• The PHSO found that the mother of a murder victim was failed by a probation provider;
• The Financial Ombud Service published its strategic plans for 2019/20;
• The LGSCO found that a London-based council and care home provided the public with confusing information about fees;
• The LGSCO found that Cornwall Council took more than a decade to decide a village green planning application;
• The LGSCO found that Kensington and Chelsea Council left a disabled woman in unsuitable temporary accommodation for too long;
• The LGSCO determined that Haringey Council left a family in two damp and cockroach-infested properties;
• The LGSCO determined that Staffordshire County Council left thousands of vulnerable people deprived of their liberty without proper assessment;
• The LGSCO determined that Ealing Borough Council failed to carry out proper assessments of the care needs of a disabled mother when her young son moved from nursery to school;
• The PHSO released its data regarding complaints about the NHS in England Quarter 3 2018-19
• The PHSO posted an update on Radio Ombudsman regarding international exchanges between the PHSO and African ombuds;
• The Scottish Public Services Ombud laid the results of eighteen decisions before the Scottish Parliament;
• The Northern Ireland Public Services Ombud and the Irish Ombud signed a Memorandum of Understanding to provide for ongoing cooperation on complaints about North-South Implementation Bodies;
• The Northern Ireland Public Service Ombud published a Spring case digest summarising its recent decisions.

Events

• Public Law Project held a conference on 25 April 2019 on public law in Wales at the University of Cardiff;
• The Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) held several administrative justice sessions on 3-4 April 2019, featuring Joe Tomlinson, Charlotte O’Brien, Paul Daly, Sarah Nason, Sarah Craig, and Stergios Aidinlis. There will be a series of UKAJI blog posts from presenters at the conference in May and June 2019.

News items

• The Guardian reported on the dysfunction at the heart of the Home Office Dublin Cessation Team which is leading to failed deportations and unlawful detentions;
• The Special Needs Jungle website reported on a series of interviews with Ofsted and CQC inspectors to investigate what their perceptions about inspections and revisits;
• The LSE politics blog published an article by Ellen Stewart, Angelo Ercia, Scott Greet & Peter Donnelly on the differential involvement of the public in NHS reform across the devolved nations and England;
• The Free Movement Blog published a piece concerning ‘Hamid hearings’ in the Upper Tribunal and High Court where legal representatives may be questioned and possibly disciplined regarding their conduct while making late applications;
• Andrew Medlock, the Assistant Director of Strategy and Partnerships at the PHSO, published a blog entitled Working together for a better complaints system;
• Sir Ernest Ryder, Senior President of Tribunals, published a message on the modernisation of tribunals;
• The National Audit Office launched an inquiry into the Home Office decision to accuse 34,000 international students of cheating in English language exams.

Upcoming from UKAJI

• A blog post from Maurice Sunkin (University of Essex) reviewing Kirkham & Hertogh’s work Research Handbook on the Ombudsman (2019, Edward Elgar Publishing);
• A blog post from Sarah Nason (University of Bangor) concerning the creation of a new online research resource mapping the administrative justice system in Wales;
• A blog post from Sarah Craig (University of Glasgow) on problems of misinterpretation in immigration hearings;
• A blog post from Charlotte O’Brien (University of York) on the discriminatory effects of the two-child rule in the administration of Child Benefit;
• A blog post from Jo Hynes (University of Exeter) on the legal geography of immigration bail hearings;
• A blog post from Stergios Aidinlis (University of Oxford) on the extra-legal factors involved in administrative decisions to accept or reject Freedom of Information requests.