Overview of the Tameside duty

The Tameside duty takes its name from Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside MBC. As Lord Diplock explained, the duty requires the decision-maker to have ‘[asked] himself the right question and take reasonable steps to acquaint himself with the relevant information to enable him to answer it correctly’. It is most commonly described as a duty to make sufficient or due inquiry. For background reading, see: ‘Due Inquiry’: Supperstone, Goudie and Walker on Judicial Review [10.59].

This duty represents a logical extension of the more general and longstanding public law principle that a decision-maker should take into account all relevant considerations and no irrelevant ones, most notably emanating from Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation. In this regard, Lord Diplock’s formulation of the test in the Tameside case is ‘firmly rooted in the Wednesbury principle’ (R (Law Society) v Lord Chancellor). This is distinct from the (erroneous) notion that the duty emanates from a duty of procedural fairness to the applicant (R (Plantaganet