Welcome to the fifth edition of the AJC Newsletter. As well as updating you on the work of the Administrative Justice Council and its members, we offer contributions from across the UK jurisdictions, from those representing the judiciary, the advice sector, ombudsman schemes and academics. We welcome your feedback; contact us at ajc@justice.org.uk
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NEW MEMBERS
A very warm welcome to Fiona Rutherford (Chief Executive, JUSTICE) who joins the Council and Steering Group, and His Honour Judge Jonathan Swift (Judge in Charge of the Administrative Court) who joins the Council.
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Sir Keith Lindblom, Senior President of Tribunals and Chair of the Administrative Justice Council, writes
Easter has past, marking the end of a busy judicial term. Covid-19 restrictions are being lifted and the tribunals are returning to a more familiar pattern of work. Efforts to recover from the impact of the pandemic will continue in the year ahead. We will also respond to new developments that affect our work – the passage of the Nationality and Borders Bill, for example, and the Government’s review of the Mental Health Act in England and Wales. And April marks the beginning of the final year of the HMCTS reform programme. We will continue to adapt to and make appropriate use of technology to help ensure swift and effective access to justice.
The AJC began the year by reviewing and refreshing its terms of reference and the principles we use to identify and prioritize new projects. I am confident these revised principles will help us respect the different roles of AJC members in the administration of justice, and ensure the Council focusses its efforts where they are most appropriate, most needed and best able to achieve a positive impact. I am grateful to Heidi Bancroft for steering that work.
A number of AJC projects are concluding and there is an opportunity now to consider the future programme of work. I welcome views from all members on potential areas of focus, guided by the prioritization principles, so that the AJC can continue to play a valuable role in promoting fairness, accessibility and efficiency in the administrative justice system, and ensuring the needs of the user are central.
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AJC Full Council Meeting
10 February 2022
The full AJC Council met for the first time this year on 10 February 2022. Chair, Sir Keith Lindblom, Senior President of Tribunals, welcomed new Council members – Fiona Rutherford (Chief Executive, JUSTICE), His Honour Judge Jonathan Swift (Head of the Administrative Court), Richard Blakeway (Housing Ombudsman), Professor Linda Mulcahy (Oxford University), Chris James (Head of Policy, Commission on Justice in Wales, Welsh Government), Mick King (the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman) and Tracy Parker-Priest (Deputy Director, Tribunals, HMCTS).
Members were offered the following presentations:
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Laura Lundy (Professor of Children’s Rights, Queen’s University, Belfast) introduced her work on engaging children meaningfully in justice systems in the light of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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Stephanie Needleman (Legal Director, JUSTICE) presented on the key points of the Human Rights Act Review Consultation.
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Rebecca Hilsenrath took members through the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman’s Corporate Strategy 2022-2025.
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Tatyana Teplova and Chloe Lelievre, representatives from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), spoke about their work on people-centred design and delivery of legal and justice systems.
Members were also given the opportunity to discuss governance documents and to offer their ideas for future AJC projects. Minutes from the meeting can be found here. The next meeting will be held on 12 July.
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'Co-location of social welfare advice
in hospital settings'
AJC Hybrid Event | 14 March 2022
The Administrative Justice Council hosted a workshop on ‘Co-location of social welfare advice in hospital settings’ on 14 March 2022.
The event, chaired by Professor Naomi Creutzfeldt (Westminster University and Co-Chair AJC Academic Panel), followed on from the AJC’s 2021 report ‘Access to social welfare advice in a hospital setting: integration of services’.
Nick Wright (Citizens Advice, Great Ormond Street Hospital) spoke about The Children’s Alliance Network, an initiative set up by the main paediatric hospitals. Nick discussed how Citizens Advice currently operates within Great Ormond Street Hospital and how the organisation could work better to improve patient and family experiences as well as saving time and money.
Michael Bell (Chair, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust) presented on how Croydon is integrating health and care via its Agenda for Sustainable Change. The agenda included a focus on preventative and anticipatory interventions as well social prescribing.
Sarah Beardon (Senior Research and Policy Fellow, UCL) presented the key findings on her PhD research entitled ‘Health-Justice Partnerships: Key findings from an implementation study’ which focused on the design and delivery of such partnerships. Sarah’s research looked at settings in hospitals, primary care, and community services and took the form of interviews with relevant stakeholders. The research identified a number of significant benefits to patients and staff.
Daniel Flury (Director, Access to Justice Policy, MoJ) spoke about the Department’s interest in early legal support intervention as set out in its 2019 Legal Support Action Plan, as well as their work with co-located legal support services within primary healthcare settings. The Department has recently instigated an initial feasibility study to consider health-justice partnerships in more detail.
Daniel explained that the MoJ had funded a related project at Citizens Advice in The Wirral and introduced Anna Barnish from that organisation to offer more information. Anna reported that their upcoming Social Prescribing Hub, based at Victoria Central Hospital, involved a partnership between several local organisations including Citizens Advice, Age UK, and Mind. The collaboration of services would enable patients to access on-site advice on a wide range of social issues. A digital data collection tool would mean patient information could be collated centrally, leading to a more streamlined service between organisations.
The presentations were followed by a discussion on aspects such as data collection, the evaluation of such partnerships, how to reduce the geographical disparity of services offered, and the importance of sustaining services once established. A recording is available on the AJC’s website.
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Update: Response to the Ministry of Justice's
Call for Evidence
on Dispute Resolution
The Ministry of Justice has provided a summary of responses to their Call for Evidence. The AJC's response is listed alongside others. Many thanks to those members who contributed to the response.
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JustRight Scotland launches
Ukraine Advice Scotland advice line
by Kirsty Thomson (Director, JustRight Scotland
and AJC Advice Sector Panel member)
JustRight Scotland has officially launched a new free, confidential advice line called Ukraine Advice Scotland.
This project, funded by the Scottish Government, is fully operative and will provide help and support to Ukrainians and their families on legal routes for seeking safety in Scotland.
To access this service, people can call the advice line number 0800 995 6045 and/or email ukraine@justrightscotland.org.uk.
The helpline is available every Tuesday, between 2pm and 5pm, and every Thursday, between 10am and 1pm.
Ukraine Advice Scotland provides free legal support and information regarding immigration routes to Scotland, as well as interpretation for advice calls.
This service is run by our qualified solicitors and legal caseworkers.
How does the helpline work?
The helpline is a national service, and it is open to Ukrainians and their family members who require help with understanding the legal immigration routes for seeking safety in Scotland.
By calling 0800 995 6045, Ukrainians and their families will be able to ask for advice and information and speak with one of our qualified staff members, free of charge and with full confidentiality, so that they can advise on how to reach Scotland legally and safely.
For example, you can ask us about how to apply to come to the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme or for advice on how to apply for a refugee status in Scotland. Please note that we do not provide information on sponsoring a Ukrainian refugee in Scotland, you can read further details here: Homes for Ukraine.
If you have other questions, for example, about your rights after you come to Scotland, we can also provide some advice on these topics, or we may signpost or refer you to our partner organisations working to welcome Ukrainians in Scotland, for example, the Scottish Refugee Council.
If you are not able to call our helpline from outside the UK, or during those times, or if you require an interpreter, you can email us ukraine@justrightscotland.org.uk and we can arrange to call you back.
Why have we launched this helpline?
As the Ukraine emergency unfolds, Scotland – like the rest of UK, is expecting thousands of refugees fleeing war and coming to our country in search of support. This helpline, funded by the Scottish Government, is an urgent response to provide free and confidential legal advice to those who are seeking a route to safety and need help navigating the UK immigration process to get here.
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- JUSTICE Administrative Law Update -
Outsourcing
Phil Armitage, Administrative & Public Lawyer
JUSTICE are currently researching for a new working party on the impact of outsourcing on administrative justice and are in the process of finalising a scoping proposal setting out what this working party should investigate. To give some context, over the last forty years, successive governments of different political parties at both a national and local level have increasingly contracted out services, assessments, and decision-making powers to non-state bodies. Approximately one third of all government expenditure is spent on outsourcing and contracting. Whilst certain programmes such as probation services have been ‘insourced’, we are starting from the position that outsourcing is going to remain a significant feature of public service delivery for the foreseeable future. The project will therefore focus on how outsourcing could be done better from an administrative justice perspective.
We have highlighted several issues we want to consider across different legal areas. First, we want to look at the impact of outsourcing on administrative justice norms, such as procedural fairness and the quality of initial decision-making. We have found examples of inadequate assessment practices by outsourced providers, for example homelessness medical assessments being done without speaking to the affected individual. Second, we want to consider why outsourcing has at times led to administrative justice norms not being applied; considering the motivation behind the initial decision to outsource, the drafting of the contract and what oversight of performance there is. Third, we want to consider how to improve accountability and transparency, including how to define a “public authority” under human rights legislation, the scope of Freedom of Information powers, the ability to challenge outsourced decisions and the oversight role of bodies such as the ombudsmen. We want to highlight examples of good practice, which could be applied more widely, as well as pointing out where things have gone wrong.
If you have any issues that you think we should consider exploring, or any personal experience with outsourced providers of public services, then Philip Armitage, JUSTICE’s Administrative and Public Lawyer, would love to hear from you. Please contact him by email to parmitage@justice.org.uk .
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Transforming Complaint Resolution
by Chris Gill (University of Glasgow and AJC Academic Panel member)
Systems for dealing with complaints operated by government departments and other public service providers deal with millions of complaints a year, but are one of the least studied parts of the administrative justice system. These systems are crucial for access to justice: most people do not complain when they have a problem with a public service and when they do, they are unlikely to take their complaint further (e.g. to an ombudsman) even if they are dissatisfied. For most aggrieved public service users, therefore, the extent to which they will be able to secure administrative justice is crucially dependent on the accessibility and fairness of internal complaint systems operated by public bodies. In the US consumer law context, it has been suggested that the 'corporation is the courthouse' for most consumer claims. In the complaint context, we might say that the 'public organisation is the ombudsman': in effect, their decisions on most complaints will be final.
Despite their importance, the existing evidence is that complaint systems are inaccessible, complex, unnecessarily diverse and incoherent, and operate in a way that does not meet the expectations of users. Crucially, despite often being conceptualised as mechanisms for driving learning and improvement, the evidence that they deliver this is scant, contributing to a public perception that complaints will be ignored and are not worth making in the first place. The value that might be derived from complaints for the public interest is also lost, as resources are wasted on systems that are sub-optimal both in remedying grievances and delivering service improvement. High profile recent scandals (such as Windrush and Grenfell) feature the recurring theme that complaints that might have avoided largescale injustice and disaster were made but ignored.
There have been important recent developments to improve this situation, with ombudsmen in devolved nations operating a Complaints Standards Authority approach, pioneered in Scotland, which allows the ombudsman to design complaints procedures and provide guidance on their operation (some ombudsmen in England use a similar approach, both on a statutory and non-statutory basis). This has led to some simplification and standardisation, although little is known about whether access to justice barriers have been overcome, how well complaint systems are resourced and prioritised, whether vulnerable and excluded groups are more likely to complain, whether organisational cultures around complaints are starting to shift, and whether processes and outcomes have in fact been improved for aggrieved service users.
To address these and other urgent issues related to complaint systems, Chris Gill (University of Glasgow), Carolyn Hirst (Hirstworks Consultancy), and Jane Williams (Queen Margaret University) have created an ESRC-funded website which aims to communicate complaint research to policymakers and practitioners and to identify and develop best practice. The website features research by the team and a blog which invites guest contributions from other academics and practitioners. The website has been supplemented since its launch last year by a series of webinars (focused on complaints about social housing and adult social care) that have brought together academics and practitioners to discuss cutting edge issues and identify areas for research and for improvement. The team has recently received funding from the University of Glasgow to deliver a series of workshops and produce a report on how to make complaints systems more accessible to vulnerable and excluded individuals and groups.
The core belief behind this work is that complaint systems, if well designed and operated, have the potential to radically improve outcomes for aggrieved users and enhance the future delivery of public services. The long term aim, therefore, is to work with others to unlock the transformative potential of complaint systems and help to mainstream these systems as key channels for the everyday achievement of administrative justice. To find out more, please visit the website and sign up to the blog at www.complaintresolution.co.uk.
If you are interested in knowing more about forthcoming events, please contact Dr Chris Gill at chris.gill@glasgow.ac.uk.
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Complaints Standards Authority
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (PSOW)
The Complaints Standards Authority (CSA) was created by the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) 2019 Act. The CSA’s task is to support effective complaint handling by Public Bodies within PSOW’s jurisdiction.
The CSA achieves this by:
- setting model complaints policies and guidelines
- offering advice and delivering bespoke training packages
- collecting and publishing data on complaints handled by Public Bodies
Since starting work in August 2019, the CSA has set model complaints policies to 39 public bodies in Wales (all 22 Local Authorities, 9 Health Boards/Trusts, and 8 Housing Associations) – and will bring more bodies under their remit until all the Welsh public sector are captured. The model policy lays out a set of minimum standards in relation to overall stages of a complaints process, and maximum timescales, which public bodies are expected to comply with.
Despite initial plans to deliver training face to face being cancelled due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the CSA has delivered over 200 training sessions since September 2020 via Microsoft Teams – completely free of charge. The sessions have provided an opportunity for participants to share examples, understand the new guidance, and reflect on their own practice to ensure that complaints are used to improve services for everyone – not just those who have the means or ability to complain. The feedback has been excellent so far, and we hope to develop new methods of delivery to ensure our offer remains sustainable.
After every quarter of the year, the CSA requests complaint handling statistics from Welsh Local Authorities and Health Boards. This data is published to PSOW’s website to drive consistency, transparency, and to allow service users to understand the broader complaints landscape throughout Wales. Currently, this information is limited to Local Authorities but will be expanded to include other public bodies in time. The data includes information on cases handled by PSOW over the same period, and shows a new context to both sets of data.
The quarter three data shows that complaints in Local Authorities in 21/22 have now surpassed pre-COVID levels, with almost 12,000 complaints logged. The data also shows that referrals to PSOW have not reduced, and that around 7.5% of all Local Authority complaints end up being brought to the Ombudsman.
Further information on the Complaints Standards Authority, and more details statistics can be found on the Ombudsman’s website – www.ombudsman.wales/complaints-standards-authority.
by Matthew Harris, Head of Complaints Standards, PSOW
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Supporting online Justice:
New resources for lay users of online hearings
Professor Linda Mulcahy and Dr Anna Tsalapatanis
An Oxford research team have been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to develop short films which provide accessible advice for lay users of online hearings. These films, which include a general film about online hearings and customised films for Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND), Social Security and Child Support (SSCS), Employment tribunals and the Family court all draw on research process involving judges, Her Majesty's Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) staff, lawyers, the advice sector and community groups. All five films were launched on the HMCTS YouTube website in March this year. Each film has English captions, optional subtitles in six different languages and a British Sign Language version. Sir Ernest Ryder, who chaired the project advisory group, has said: “Supporting Online Justice is an exemplar of how effective a partnership between the University sector, HMCTS and the Judiciary can be.”
The films range from 13-17 minutes in length and use drawn characters, simple animations and accessible language. Each film is divided into sections which address issues such as how litigants can prepare in advance of the hearing, set up their room and maximise connectivity. They also provide guidance on what things they will need to hand, what the screen of online hearings looks like, the role of everyone involved and what they should do if something goes wrong with the technology. The films are designed to be platform agnostic in order to ensure their longevity and the project team will also be handing over the 450 images produced for the film, soundtracks, subtitles and annotated scripts to HMCTS in April this year so that they have the tools to update them or even produce additional films cheaply.
Prototype films were tested in focus groups at foodbanks, church halls and community gardens to ensure that they addressed the needs of people who are unfamiliar with systems for online hearings, legal language or court and tribunal procedures. A project report produced at the same time as the films outlines a series of seven evidence-based principles which we believe should steer the production of public information films about the justice system. These are particularly sensitive to the needs of a diverse range of users including those suffering from extreme anxiety.
Full details, including the links to the films and the report can be found here:
https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/supporting-online-justice
For more information contact:
linda.mulcahy@csls.ox.ac.uk or anna.tsalapatanis@csls.ox.ac.uk .
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Access Social Care to launch its
legal information chatbot
Kari Gerstheimer, CEO of Access Social Care and
member of the AJC Advice Sector Panel
Access Social Care has developed an innovative letter completion tool for our legal information chatbot. The chatbot identifies the user’s legal situation and selects a legal template letter that might assist them to uphold their rights. The chatbot then has a conversation with the user, gathering further relevant information about their situation that will serve to complete the template. This results in a bespoke legal letter, relevant to their personal situation. The user downloads the letter and sends it to a decision maker, usually the local authority, reminding them of their statutory obligations. The chatbot sends a further automated email within the timescale that the local authority should have responded to the letter, reminding them of next steps, should the outcome they have sought not yet have been accomplished. The letter completion tool will launch on our website in April here: https://www.accesscharity.org.uk/resources
We want as many people as possible to use the chatbot to help solve their social care problems or help them to identify when they need specialist advice from a lawyer. We know that in order to achieve this, we need to get the chatbot on as many trusted websites as we can. For this reason, we will work over the next six months to develop a plug-in to allow us to provide the chatbot to other organisations as a software as a service. With our chatbot on websites serving different communities across England, we and our partners will be able to gather data to inform system change work, as well as enabling local communities to take an evidence based approach to grassroots campaigning. We are also working with trusted intermediaries in underserved communities to encourage and support use of the chatbot and overcome digital exclusion.
We believe that the chatbot can add value across other legal frameworks and we therefore plan to develop modules that can be used by the advice sector and advice seekers in other social welfare fields. We would be interested in hearing from organisations who may wish to partner with us either by hosting the chatbot on their websites or working with us to develop modules in their area of specialism.
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Make complaints count:
Share your views on new Complaint Standards for UK Central Government
Andrew Medlock gives an update on the work the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman has been doing with partners to develop a comprehensive set of Complaint Standards for public sector organisations. He also invites you to take part in our public consultation on the Standards.
For me, during the pandemic, time simply melded into one blurry memory. While it feels like yesterday, I remind myself that – after much hard effort and engagement – we launched the first version of the NHS Complaint Standards in March 2021. What astonishes me most about this is that the positive momentum we generated to reach that point has simply continued unbound, despite the challenges brought by COVID.
This may be because the Complaint Standards are there primarily to support frontline staff across the public sector who handle complaints. They describe not only a single vision for best practice in complaints handling, but also how this can be achieved in practice.
I also like to think it is because the Standards are changing people’s perception of complaints – from something that is seen as a negative, to something that is viewed as a valuable source of learning and insight into how public services can be continuously improved.
Common principles and expectations for how complaints are handled
We’ve harnessed this momentum to look at how to expand the Complaint Standards so they cover UK central government departments (and other public bodies) that we investigate.
But would the NHS Complaint Standards easily ‘translate’ over to central government departments and their work? Over the past ten months we’ve aimed to answer this question. We set up working groups to engage with government departments, advice and advocacy groups that support the public within this sector, and other key stakeholders. Overall, the answer is an emphatic ‘yes’.
Our conversations reinforced the view that the Complaint Standards contain commonly held principles and expectations that resonate across public services. We found they also align with what service users would expect to see and experience if they were to raise a concern about a central government department.
A consistent approach to complaint handling
I have been struck by the incredible positivity we have received. Everyone involved is united behind the overall aims of the Standards and what they seek to achieve. This is a hugely important milestone towards embedding a consistent approach to complaints across public services.
Like the NHS Complaint Standards, UK Central Government Standards will focus on:
- welcoming complaints in a positive way and recognising them as valuable insight for organisations
- supporting a thorough and fair approach that accurately reflects the experiences of everyone involved
- encouraging fair and accountable responses that provide open and honest answers as soon as possible
- promoting a learning culture by supporting organisations to see complaints as opportunities to improve services.
A better experience for people making a complaint
We recently commissioned research into the public’s views on complaining about government services. People told us they do not feel confident that complaints are managed correctly or acted upon under existing public sector complaints processes. These much needed Complaint Standards aim to change that view.
We are now one step closer to the vision that people will experience a high quality, accessible and responsive service should they raise a complaint – regardless of whether it is about the NHS or a central government department. This is hugely significant both in the longer term and the immediate future, as the impact of the pandemic on public services continues to be felt.
Have your say on the new Standards
I am delighted to share with you the version of the Complaint Standards for UK central government departments and related organisations, which you can find on our website.
We are now keen to hear what you think of these. Your views matter so much, and your feedback will be critical to improving complaints handling for everybody.
Please take a few minutes to complete our survey and help make complaints count. The survey is open until 31 May 2022.
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The 2021 Legal Aid Census
Chris Minnoch (CEO, Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG) and AJC Advice Sector Panel member) offers an update on LAPG's Legal Aid Census findings.
On 31 March 2022 LAPG published the findings of the 2021 Legal Aid Census, the largest and most comprehensive piece of research ever undertaken into the legal aid workforce in England and Wales. LAPG commissioned an independent team of academics to carry out the research to address the dearth of data about those who provide legal aid services. While government holds basic data about cases and contracts, and collects some client demographic information, it collects no data about those who deliver the services. LAPG has long believed that this lack of understanding of providers has an adverse impact on government policy-making. When the government published its Legal Support Action Plan in February 2019, it committed to conduct research to assess ‘what is the best way to help and support those who need it’. However it did not commit to gathering the data it needs to better understand the provider market despite clear signs that the sector is in steady decline. We repeatedly asked the Ministry of Justice to commission this research but were told it was not a priority. So we decided to conduct this research ourselves.
After many months of planning and testing with our independent team of academics from Cardiff and Glasgow Universities, five separate surveys where launched in April 2021 under the banner of the Legal Aid Census. We wanted to establish a baseline of demographic data about legal aid practitioners and gain a better understanding of critically important issues such as education, training, salaries, fee arrangements and job satisfaction. The response was overwhelming, with more the 2200 participating individuals and organisations. Researchers from Monash and Oxford universities joined the academic team at the analysis stage and they have now presented us with their compelling findings.
The academic report provides detailed demographic data about individual respondents and the key characteristics of organisations delivering legal aid. Across a very wide range of findings, certain aspects of the academics’ work stand out as critical to the debate about the need for legal aid reform. In particular, the research demonstrates significant concerns about the recruitment, retention and wellbeing of staff, echoing concerns raised by the Westminster Commission on Legal Aid, the criminal legal aid Data Compendium and the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid. The research also highlights serious concerns about the impact of legal aid fees and point to an overwhelming need for an increase in government investment in the legal aid scheme.
To discuss the Legal Aid Census findings please contact LAPG CEO, Chris Minnoch: chris.minnoch@lapg.co.uk
The Census Executive Summary is available to download here.
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- Project Update -
Delivering administrative justice
after the pandemic
Following the contribution in December's Newsletter regarding a research project being led by AJC member, Professor Naomi Creutzfeldt, the research team would like users of the Housing Ombudsman and the Property Chamber for housing issues, and users of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the First-tier Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal for special educational needs issues, to complete an anonymous survey to help the researchers understand their experience of interacting with those institutions during the pandemic.
In addition, the team has created a survey for advice sector organisations on their experience of helping their clients and interacting with those institutions. The team has provided links to complete the surveys and would be grateful if they could be completed and/or shared. The introduction to the survey links are below:
Introduction
We are a team of academics conducting an independent research project about how justice is delivered and experienced. Please can you take a bit of time to fill out this anonymous survey to help us understand how you experienced your interaction with the ombudsman/tribunal. Your participation is valuable as it will help us to grasp how justice is delivered. We will publish a report about our findings which we can send to you.
For any questions, please contact:
Professor Naomi Creutzfeldt n.creutzfeldt@westminster.ac.uk.
Links to surveys:
Housing Ombudsman
Property Chamber
SEND Tribunal
Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Advice Sector organisations
Thank you!
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