PIP news from the PCS

“We also have reports of staff being instructed not to contact customers for further information but to make the decision without it.”

Surely where a decision-maker has formed a provisional view as to the course to be
adopted, or is ‘minded’ to take a particular course subject to the outcome, it is expected that those being consulted should be informed of this so as to better focus their responses?  Also information contained in a consultation document presented to a decision maker should not be as inaccurate or incomplete as to mislead potential consultees in their responses.’ Inaccurate or incomplete information may have the effect of precluding an ‘informed and intelligent response’ to the disadvantage of a party that may be affected by the decision. This is especially important where that information ‘is outside the knowledge of those consulted, and upon which they are therefore obliged to rely in formulating their response.’

Also

“Unless the subject of the decision has had the opportunity to put his case it may not be easy to knew what case he could or would have put if he had the chance.’

Where the decision-maker is under a duty to act fairly the subject of the decision may properly be said to have a right to be heard, and rights are not to be lightly denied”.

LJ Bingham

First, the requirement “is liable to result in better decisions, by ensuring that the decision-maker receives all relevant information and that it is properly tested” (para 67). Second, it avoids “the sense of injustice which the person who is the subject of the decision will otherwise feel” (para 68)
R (Osborn) v Parole Board [2013] UKSC 61, [2013] 3 WLR 1020

The decision maker must have regard to the statutory context and that in this particular statutory context, the duty of the DWP is to ensure public participation in the decision-making process by collecting all evidence so as to enable the DM to make an informed and intelligent response. It seems to me that in order to do so it must act fairly by collecting sufficient evidence for it to make an informed and intelligent response.

“it would of course have been unrealistic not to accept that it is certainly probably that, if the representations had been listened to by the Secretary of State, he would have nevertheless have adhered to his policy. However, we are not satisfied that such a result must inevitably have followed …. It would in our view be wrong for this court to speculate as to how the Secretary of State would have exercised his discretion if he had heard the representations … we are not prepared to hold that it would have been a useless formality
for the Secretary of State to have listened to the representations …”.
Ackner LJ