## Facts

- The claimants were members of various occupational pension schemes who suffered financial loss after relying on official assurances that their pensions were safe and guaranteed.
- Those assurances were contained in leaflets, guidance notes, and ministerial statements issued or approved by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
- The Parliamentary Ombudsman, exercising powers under the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, investigated complaints of maladministration. The investigation concluded that the DWP had provided information that was “inaccurate, incomplete, unclear and inconsistent,” thereby misleading scheme members.
- The Ombudsman’s report identified a causal connection between the misinformation and the losses suffered by the claimants; it recommended that the Government establish arrangements to restore the claimants to the position they would have occupied had the maladministration not occurred.
- The Secretary of State formally responded to the report, rejecting a number of the Ombudsman’s key findings and declining to implement the recommended compensation scheme.
- Believing that the Secretary of State had acted unlawfully in rejecting the findings and refusing compensation, the claimants sought judicial review, contending that the decision was irrational and inconsistent with public-law standards.

## Issues

1. Whether, as a matter of public law, a minister or government department may lawfully decline to accept the factual findings and recommendations of the Parliamentary Ombudsman without providing cogent reasons.
2. Whether the DWP’s refusal to follow the Ombudsman’s findings met the high threshold of irrationality (Wednesbury unreasonableness) so as to warrant the intervention of the High Court.

## Decision

- The High Court (Administrative Court) granted the claim for judicial review and quashed the relevant parts of the Secretary of State’s decision.
- The Court accepted that Ombudsman reports are not legally binding in the same sense as a court order; however, they are “highly persuasive” and constitute a material consideration that must be taken into account in accordance with ordinary principles of administrative law.
- Where an expert investigatory body such as the Parliamentary Ombudsman has made detailed findings of fact, a public authority that wishes to depart from those findings must demonstrate “cogent and rational grounds.” Merely asserting disagreement or substituting its own view is insufficient.
- In the present case, the reasons advanced by the DWP—chiefly that the information provided was not misleading when read in context and that any losses were attributable to wider market conditions—were held to be inadequate. The Court found that the Secretary of State had failed to engage with the evidential and logical basis of the Ombudsman’s analysis.
- The decision to reject the findings was therefore Wednesbury unreasonable: no reasonable minister adequately directing himself in law and in fact could have reached that decision on the material before him.
- Accordingly, the Court ordered the Secretary of State to reconsider the matter in light of the judgment, giving proper weight to the Ombudsman’s conclusions.

## Legal Principles

- Wednesbury unreasonableness: A decision is irrational if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable public decision-maker could have reached it (Associated Provincial Picture Houses v Wednesbury Corporation [1948] 1 KB 223).
- Material consideration: When exercising a discretionary power, a public authority must take into account all relevant considerations, including the findings of specialist investigatory bodies to which Parliament has entrusted oversight functions.
- Status of Ombudsman reports: Although the Parliamentary Ombudsman lacks coercive power, the constitutional scheme assumes that ministers will normally accept the Ombudsman’s determinations unless they can identify demonstrable error.
- Burden of justification: The party rejecting an Ombudsman’s findings bears the burden of producing clear, reasoned justification; mere disagreement or recitation of alternative policy preferences will not suffice.
- Separation of investigative and executive functions: Judicial review is not an appeal on the merits, but the court may intervene where the executive dismisses authoritative factual findings without rational explanation.

## Conclusion

R (Bradley) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions confirms that Parliament’s choice to create an Ombudsman mechanism would be undermined if ministers could lightly discard its findings. While such findings are not binding, they carry significant weight. A public body that rejects them must marshal cogent evidence and reasoning; failure to do so will be judged irrational and unlawful under the Wednesbury standard.

R (Bradley) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2009] QB 114