Judicial review litigation as an incentive to change in local authority public services in England and Wales

Judicial review is of growing importance to public administration in the United Kingdom but its role in relation to government remains highly contentious. There is much debate over the extent to which it is a threat that imposes costs and impairs service delivery or a positive resource that helps secure improvements in service quality. In this article, we consider the findings of the first comprehensive quantitative study of the relationships between levels of judicial review litigation and the quality of local government services. The findings indicate that judicial review may be making a positive contribution to local government in England and Wales. The article also considers the way local government officials perceive judicial review and argues that reactions to judicial review cannot be wholly understood in terms of incentives. Judicial review makes a positive contribution to public administration and does so at least partly because it promotes values that are central to the ethos of public administration and assists officials in resolving tensions between individual and collective justice that lie at the core of their responsibilities.