Why do most welfare applicants fail to challenge adverse decisions despite a continuing sense of need?



The book addresses this severely under-researched and under-theorised question. Using English homelessness law as their case study,the authors explore why homeless applicants did -- but more often did not -- challenge adverse decisions by seeking internal administrative review. They draw out from their data a list of the barriers to the take up of grievance rights. Further, by combining extensive interview data from aggrieved homeless applicants with ethnographic data about bureaucratic decision-making, they are able to situate these barriers within the dynamics of the citizen-bureaucracy relationship. Additionally, they point to other contexts which inform applicants' decisions about whether to request an internal review. Drawing on a diverse literature -- risk, trust, audit, legal consciousness, and complaints -- the authors lay the foundations for our understanding of the (non-)emergence of administrative disputes.

Dave Cowan is Professor of Law and Policy in the School of Law, Bristol University.

Simon Halliday is the Nicholas de B Katzenbach Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University.

Caroline Hunter is a Senior Lecturer in Housing Law at the School of Environment and Development, Sheffield Hallam University.

Paul Maginn is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Social Research, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia.

Lisa Naylor was formerly a Research Assistant at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University.