Joe Tomlinson’s research while affiliated with University of Strathclyde and other places

This paper examines the process of seeking social care needs assessments under the Care Act 2014 in England through the lens of procedural fairness theory. Drawing on interviews with 21 individuals with experiences of needs assessments, we identify the 'process qualities'-the factors rooted in the literature on procedural fairness-that matter most to people navigating this critical front-line component of the social care system. Our analysis reveals two themes: the importance of 'dignified treatment' and system 'proactivity', each underpinned by a set of process qualities. These qualities for the former-personalisation, empathy, and voice-are well explored in the literature on person-centred care. However, the latter-responsibility taking, dependability, transparency, assistance, and availability-are neglected in current research on experiences of the Care Act 2014. Drawing on these process qualities, we set out the potential for future research grounded in procedural fairness theory in social care.

A focus on rights consciousness has become a mainstay of the socio‐legal study of law in everyday life. Such research, much of it critical in orientation, generally uses people's sense of grievance as its starting point. The consequent risk is that we elide rights consciousness with a sense of injustice. This article argues that there is merit for critical studies of legal consciousness in keeping these two things separate, and that this represents a dimension of the critical approach to rights consciousness that is largely missing from the field. We present a study of rights consciousness in relation to the imposition of lockdown in the United Kingdom during the early stage of the COVID‐19 pandemic. We show that, despite regarding lockdown as a violation of basic rights, most people did not feel a sense of grievance. Furthermore, rights consciousness was influenced by a range of factors distinct from political orientation, most of which were within the sphere of governmental influence. In this way, governmental power was constitutive of the public's rights consciousness. Further exploration and assessment of when, where, and how this might occur should be part of the critical project of legal consciousness research.

Application forms-the most mundane of documents-are often the compulsory interface between an individual and the state. From social security and immigration, to health and social care, application forms are ubiquitous across almost all areas of Government bureaucracy. However, socio-legal research on administrative justice tends to examine these forms from the perspective of front-line decision-makers, instead of the form-filler. Drawing on a survey experiment with 655 Universal Credit recipients (a means-tested social security benefit) in the UK, we demonstrate how the inclusion of space for personal narrative in a local welfare application form-the ability to set out one's circumstances in full-significantly increases perceptions of procedural fairness. Our findings demonstrate how seemingly small changes to form design can have a considerable impact on the perceived fairness of an application process and the importance of grounding administrative justice research in the experiences of people who regularly interact with the administrative processes of the state.

The front‐line of the welfare state is increasingly not a letter, phone call or face‐to‐face visit, but an online user‐interface. This ‘interface first’ bureaucracy is a fundamental reshaping of social security administration, but the design and operation of these interfaces is poorly understood. Drawing on interview data from senior civil servants, welfare benefits advisors and claimants on the UK's flagship Universal Credit working‐age benefit, this paper is a detailed analysis of the role played by interfaces in the modern welfare state. Providing examples from across the Universal Credit system, it sets out a five‐fold typology of user‐interface design elements in the social security context: (i) structuring data input, (ii) interaction architecture, (iii) operative controls, (iv) prompting and priming, and (v) integrations. The paper concludes by considering the implications of an ‘interface first’ welfare bureaucracy for future research.

This article shows, through a study of hosts’ experiences of the UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, the ways in which sponsoring refugees can impose burdens on sponsors by virtue of the state’s administrative processes. Specifically, it shows how sponsors incur learning, compliance, and psychological costs from administrative burdens and that these burdens are encountered both directly, through their own engagements with public bodies, and vicariously, through the experiences of their guests. The article thus makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the ground-level experience of refugee sponsorship while also expanding the burgeoning theory of administrative burden by demonstrating the relevance of burdens experienced vicariously.

In the past few years, more than six million EU citizens living in the UK have transitioned to a new immigration status. The only evidence they have of this new status is in digital form. This group is now navigating the UK's 'compliant environment,' designed to deter unauthorised migration, with this new form of status. This has created an unpredictable new dynamic with serious risks of discrimination in everyday interactions, such as when people are trying to rent a property. In this article, we explore the impact of this digital-only status by drawing on a large-scale discrete choice experiment with private rented sector landlords, which shows that people with digital-only immigration status are substantially penalised on the private rental market due to the form of their ID. We argue that this discrimination is not only troubling in substance but also arguably amounts to a breach of non-discrimination and equal treatment provisions under the Withdrawal Agreement (Article 12 and Article 23 respectively). The apparent lack of effective enforcement points to the potential limits of such protections after Brexit.

One of the most profound shifts seen in governments around the world in recent years is the emergence of the digital welfare state. This transformation has seen the welfare state increasingly dependent on digitalised, automated, and data-driven forms of public administration, which are altering the nature of welfare provision itself. This transition raises a fundamental question: what does a legitimate process look like in this new welfare state? Using new qualitative datasets, this article explores how public officials, welfare claimants, and welfare rights advisors reason about the processes of the UK's flagship social security programme, Universal Credit ('UC')-one of the most prominent digital welfare systems anywhere in the world. It shows that, while the new era of digital welfare is characterised by a paradigmatic, shared intention to make processes work for claimants, the logic of what constitutes an acceptable process for claimants diverges in important ways between officials, advisors and claimants. We characterise these respective logics as 'UC as a service', 'UC as an entitlement', and 'UC as a relationship'. Our purpose is not to claim one of these logics is superior per se but that a greater appreciation of them, the perspectives from which they derive, and where and how they differ, can shed valuable light on emerging tensions within and disagreements about the digital welfare state.

Administrative tribunals are a vital part of the public law frameworks of many countries.This is the 1st edited book collection to examine tribunals across the common law world. It brings together key international scholars to discuss current and future challenges. The book includes contributions from leading scholars from all major common law jurisdictions – the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and South Africa. This global analysis is both deep and expansive in its coverage of the operation of administrative tribunals across common law legal systems. The book has two key themes: one is the enduring question of the location and operation of tribunals within public law systems; the second is the continued mission of tribunals to provide administrative justice. The collection is an important addition to global public law scholarship, addressing common problems faced by the tribunals of common law countries, and providing solutions for how tribunals can evolve to match the changing nature of government.