Research involving ISER’s Lucinda Platt shows that legal challenges to local authorities help them to improve the service they deliver.
The research challenges recent assertions that we are becoming overly litigious and that this interferes with local government’s ability to act in the public interest. It also contradicts those who claim we have become overly preoccupied with asserting our rights rather than accepting our responsibilities.
A team from the University of Essex School of Law and Human Rights Centre, Department of Government and ISER looked at Judicial Reviews (the principal means by which people can challenge the legality of action taken by public authorities) between 2000 and 2005. The main focus was the scale and pattern of challenges against local authorities; the relationship between challenges and the quality of service delivered according to Government performance measures; the incentives and obstacles to implementing judgments and the difference that judgments make to local authorities.
The research found that far from being on the increase, there is less judicial review litigation against local authorities than is widely assumed and that much of it is concentrated on a small number of London Councils. 20% of public authorities attracted 80% of Judicial Reviews and the 20 most challenged authorities were all London Boroughs. The four most challenged authorities (Lambeth, Newham, Southwark and Hackney) attracted almost 25% of all challenges.
Better performing authorities faced lower levels of challenge than similar but worse performing authorities and the findings also indicated that rather than detracting from the quality of local government, an increased level of challenge appears to lead to improvements in performance.
Commenting on the findings: lead researcher on the project, Maurice Sunkin, said:
“Our findings challenge the assumption that Judicial Review is an increased burden on local authorities, and actually show that it does have the ability to bring about change for the better. Far from being a challenge to public administration, it is part and parcel of what good quality public administration is about.”
Over half the challenges were housing related and concerned homelessness, housing and housing benefits. Planning, community care and education together generated 30 per cent of the challenges.
Co-researcher Lucinda Platt from ISER said:
“This highlights the extent to which judicial review is used to help meet the needs of the most vulnerable people who depend on having access to high quality and properly funded expert services. In short, it underscores the link, rather than the tension, between access to justice and improvements in the quality of local government.”