Understanding how and when change occurs in the administrative justice system: the ombudsman/ tribunal partnership as a catalyst for reform?

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ongoing condition of the ombudsman sector through models of change adopted from the social science literature. Debates about change are fleshed out through an analysis of the ombudsman/tribunal partnership initiative currently underway. As well as providing an explanation for the slow process of reform in the ombudsman sector, the article highlights the need for further research into the partnership initiative to detail the strengths, weaknesses and sustainability of such bottom-up reform agendas in the administrative justice system. We conclude that the impact of each individual initiative is likely to be minor but as a process they represent important moments of institutional learning which, in the context of current crisis, could operate as catalysts for major administrative justice reform.

KEYWORDS:

• Ombudsman
• tribunals
• partnership
• change
• reform
• administrative justice

Acknowledgments

Richard Kirkham acknowledges the funding support of the Nuffield Foundation for some of the research that went into this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A note on terminology: In this piece we use the term ombudsman and ombuds as the plural.

2. Across multiple papers, different factors can be identified (eg Beckstein (2019, pp. 625–7) details six) but these four are common in most accounts.

3. For instance, consider the profile of a film like I, Daniel Blake (see generally O’Brien 2018) or the reaction to the Windrush affair (Home Affairs Committee 2018).

4. The Administrative Justice Council (AJC), an advisory body that largely relies upon the voluntary input of administrative justice providers, has set up a working group to monitor the OT partnership and future research is planned examine its output.

5. Under the Charities Act 2011, ss. 325 and 326 the Charities Commission can refer points of law to the Charity Tribunal. For a discussion, see Joint Committee on Draft Charities Bill 2003–04, para 241, Law Commission 2017-19: ch. 15.

6. See the Pensions Ombudsman (Pension Schemes Act 1993, s. 150(7)) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FCA Handbook, DISP 3.4.2). Interestingly, with both the ombudsman sector and the Charities Commission the power has been used sparingly (Law Commission 2017-19: ch.15).