Introduction

Summary

This is a book about institutions in the administrative justice system (AJS), their users and pathways to justice. The AJS is made up of institutions that help individuals when the government acts in ways that are unfair or unjust (Adler 2003; Mullen 2010, 2016; Kirkham 2016; Tomlinson 2017b). The institutions that form the AJS are complaint schemes, ombuds,1 tribunals and the Administrative Court. They influence our lives in areas of housing, health care, education, social security and taxation, for example.

The Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council established a framework for understanding the intricate connections between the decision-making process that underpins the relationship between the state and its citizens, as well as the methods utilized to resolve disputes, such as internal or external complaints and reviews, and the involvement of independent complaint handlers such as ombuds and tribunals (House of Commons 2023). As our book will show in later chapters, these associations are not actual connections between the institutions. Rather, the institutions are disconnected and typically operate in silos, which contributes to an over-complication of the AJS for those who work in these institutions as well as for people who seek access to these institutions.

This book is based on a Nuffield-funded research project and is about people who administer institutions of the AJS, about people who use institutions of the AJS, and about those who do not access institutions of the AJS. We explore these different positions in the AJS through two distinct pathways to seek redress: housing and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). We focus on these areas because they have been especially affected by two major changes to the justice system: digitalization (Tomlinson 2017a; Ryder 2019) and the COVID-19 pandemic (Creutzfeldt and Sechi 2021). The pathways through the justice system that we look at include advice services, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), ombuds and tribunals. The emphasis on these institutions allows us to better understand the effects of the pandemic; how such institutions managed to provide their services remotely; and how people accessed these services.

This book extends existing research by examining the effect of rapid digitalization on the delivery of justice.