The government’s desire to abolish the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council (AJTC) is “perverse”, “contradictory” and “short-sighted”, the council has warned in a response to a Ministry of Justice consultation.

The MoJ is consulting on the Public Bodies Bill, and intends to pass the AJTC’s work to what it calls “a dedicated team of civil servants”. However, in the AJTC’s response to the consultation, its chair Richard Thomas warns that “it would be perverse to abolish a well-established, well-respected and well-connected body which – at relatively miniscule cost to the public purse – brings significant experience and expertise to the overview of administrative justice in the UK”.

The response points out that the Open Public Services white paper announces that the government intends to “examine the role of elected and unelected office-holders in championing individuals’ rights, ensuring availability of services and providing overview and scrutiny.” The prime minister talked at the white paper’s launch about “the importance of the user in public services – which is wonderful,” Thomas told CSWlast Friday, as the AJTC submitted its response to the MoJ. “But it does seem very perverse that we’re going to be abolished at this time.” On this point, his letter says: “It would be contradictory and short-sighted to abolish the AJTC, the organisation that exists for this very purpose, before the proposed examination takes place.”

The AJTC is a non-departmental public body tasked with scrutinising all the government’s systems of administrative justice – including the various tribunals, ombudsmen, internal appeals systems and even original decision-making processes. Responsibility for these processes runs across many departments, Thomas told CSW – but the MoJ’s consultation suggests that the oversight role will rest with a team of MoJ officials.

The AJTC’s letter argues that MoJ civil servants cannot credibly claim to act impartially in issues around administrative justice, “where there is inevitably a direct conflict between government and the aggrieved citizen”, and will not be able to scrutinise and improve administrative justice systems run by other departments. In fact, Thomas said, there are only two civil servants in the MoJ’s “dedicated team” with a brief covering administrative justice. “There’s a little bit of a director general’s time; slightly more of a director’s time,” he said. “But for people who are doing this full-time, you’re down to higher executive officer level.”

The letter also complains that the AJTC was not consulted during last summer’s review of government quangos. “I didn’t have any engagement at all,” Thomas told CSW. “We expected to be able to contribute to the review. But then out of the blue we were told that there was a ministerial decision that straight away we were to be included in the Public Bodies Bill.”

If the AJTC is abolished, Thomas predicted, “in terms of public credibility, in terms of our criteria of access, fairness, efficiency [in administrative justice], I think there will be a drop in those measurements”.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "There is already a team in the Ministry of Justice that offers Ministers impartial and independent advice on administrative justice reform. This team also seeks external expert advice.

"We also take account of the views of service users - almost all tribunal jurisdictions have user groups to enable users to discuss issues of concern with the judiciary and HMCTS management.  For this reason, the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council is considered to offer a duplication of work that is properly the role of government.

"There are governance arrangements in place between the Ministry of Justice and HMCTS to ensure proper levels and forms of accountability."

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Written by Matt Ross, CSW