Oversight for the consumer rights of public service users – including parking appeals, schools admissions, council tax and housing benefits – would be imperilled by Government plans to abolish a body tasked with ensuring fairness and legal redress.

According to Richard Thomas, chair of the under-threat Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council (AJTC), the July launch by David Cameron of the Open Public Services White Paper makes the decision to scrap the body ‘contradictory' and ‘short-sighted' and its timing ‘misguided'.