R v Local Commissioner for Administration in North and North East England, ex parte Liverpool

Respondent finding maladministration in applicants’ approval of planning permission – Whether respondent correct in applying test of “reasonable suspicion” contained in National Code of Local Government Conduct rather than test in R v Gough test – Application dismissed In 1995 Liverpool City Football Club sought planning permission to erect an extension to a stand at the football stadium. On 11 October 1995 the applicant council resolved to grant planning permission subject to a section 106 agreement. Permission was granted in February 1997. On 24 October 1995 a local residents’ group wrote to the respondent commissioner asking her to investigate the grant of planning permission on the ground that the councillors’ and planning officers’ actions were “improper and suspect”. The respondent’s report found maladministration on the part of the applicants in two respects: first, that some councillors had not declared their non-pecuniary interests in the club; and second, some councillors had voted out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to their political party. The applicants sought judicial review to quash the respondent’s report on the ground, notably that the respondent should have applied the “real danger of bias” test, as set out in R v Gough [1993] AC 646, rather than the more stringent test contained in the National Code of Local Government Conduct, namely a test of “reasonable suspicion”. The applicanrs submitted that had the “real danger of bias” test been applied, it would have resulted in a different conclusion. Held The application was dismissed. Although it may well have been that the test on an application for judicial review of a planning decision was the “real danger of bias” test, there was no reason why the respondent should not have applied the test as set out in the code. That was the test by which members of the applicant council had agreed to be bound, rather than the arguably less stringent test applied in judicial review proceedings. The code, as presently drafted, required application of the “reasonable suspicion” test. In the light of the respondent’s findings of fact, her conclusion that there had been maladministration was not Wednesbury unreasonable. Frances Patterson QC and Colin Crawford (instructed by the solicitor to Liverpool City Council) appeared for the applicants; Brian Ash QC and John Hobson (instructed by Pulvers, of Watford) appeared for the respondent. Sarah Addenbrooke, barrister