The thing to remember about the social fund legislation in Northern Ireland is that it is derived from legislation that the Westminster Parliament first passed in 1988, which was before article 6 issues were being thought about. The legal advice that I received as the commissioner some years ago was that the fact that someone who was dissatisfied with the external review process and the work that my office had done could make an application for judicial review made us article 6 compliant. That was the advice that we had, although it was never tested in court.
The word “discretionary” really refers to the fact that you have a finite sum of money and, therefore, you have to take decisions looking at the individual circumstances of each case. It is quite interesting that in 2013-14, in the cases that we received, we found fault in 25 per cent of the decisions that the agency took. There is also an internal review process within the agency. The first thing that my inspectors do when they receive an application is ask themselves whether the law has been interpreted correctly in the decision-making process and whether the decision that has been arrived at follows the principles of natural justice. If we are satisfied that that is not the case, we go on to the next stage. At that stage, we review the merits of the case. If we think that it has complied with the process and meets the guidance, we will not uphold the decision. Last year, we overturned 36 per cent of the cases that came to us.
At the second stage, we look at the merits of the case. The first question that we ask ourselves is whether there is any new evidence or change in the circumstances. We might well come to a view that the guidance has been misinterpreted and, therefore, we will overturn the decision.
Finally, we ensure that the decisions that we communicate are always a maximum of two sides in length. They always have the actual decision at the top, so that the applicant understands the decision that is being made, whether it is positive or negative from their point of view. We send the same letter to the agency and, at the bottom of the letter, we will also say if we have found an error with its reasoning. For example, it might not have asked the right questions, in which case we might say that there has been an inquisitorial error. We might say that there has been a qualification error: it might not have interpreted the guidance appropriately. Those are the things that we do.
I turn to the question of the budget, which Jim Martin has just touched on. The Department for Work and Pensions was responsible for the social fund across Great Britain from 1988 until 2013. It used to divide up the annual budget for the social fund among the 12 regions of Great Britain. Here in Scotland, there were offices in Springburn and Inverness—there were two budgets here. I recall giving evidence to the Westminster Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee in 2011 when it was considering the operation of community care grants. One of the points that I made was that, depending on where in Great Britain people lived, they could end up with a different resolution despite having the same case, in theory. The question was raised whether that was appropriate. Secondly, different levels of complaints came from different parts of Great Britain.
There are issues about awareness of the review process and about how the operation of first-line decision making is undertaken. The really interesting thing is that the DWP tried to ensure that each of the 12 regions was aware that its budget had to carry it through the whole 12 months, so that there was never any question of the budget running out. That meant that the various high, medium and low priorities would alter during the year. Third sector representatives and applicants found that particularly difficult to understand and appreciate.
A lot of issues arise in that regard, and I would imagine that you might have similar emerging issues with your 32 local authorities.