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Analysing systemic administrative justice failures: explanatory factors and prospects for future research

This article is animated by two related concerns. First, in recent times, we have witnessed a number of large-scale systemic failures of administrative justice. Second, administrative justice scholarship has typically concentrated more upon individual redress and dispute resolution than the wider organisation, operation, and behaviours of administrative systems that generate matters that are then challenged. This article seeks to close the gap between these two phenomena by asking why systemic failures arise and what can be done about them. Systemic administrative justice failures involve deep-seated structural flaws within administrative systems. Recent examples include medical assessments for disability benefits, the Windrush scandal, and other instances considered here. Systemic failures arise when the problems people experience are not the result of aberrant or one-off errors confined to their specific case or the individual treatment they receive. Instead, recurrent systemic failures result from the suboptimal design and/or operation of the wider administrative system. Such problems have always occurred, but it is arguable that more of them have been occurring. Alternatively, public expectations of government have increased and/or the recognition, intolerance, and scrutiny of such failures have increased. Either way, systemic failures deserve study. The prevalence of systemic problems would appear to be a major area of inquiry for administrative justice research given the scale of public services. However, much of the literature has concentrated upon individual redress and dispute resolution, its accessibility, procedures, effectiveness, and overall coherence. The focus has often been more on the ‘administrative justice system’ as opposed to ‘justice within administrative systems’. These two phrases embody important conceptual and practical differences (Adler 2003, 2010). The former concerns external redress processes (tribunals, complaints, and ombuds) that operate across different contexts and comprise an overall ‘horizontal’ redress system, although in practice it often seems otherwise. This ‘top-down’ approach compares with a ‘grass roots up’ perspective that focuses on how specific administrative systems operate, how people interact with them, and the impact upon affected individuals. From this ‘vertical’ perspective, redress occupies just one part of these large-scale and functional systems. Accordingly, it is necessary to examine the structure and