“In general the principle we have applied in setting standards for new qualifications is that a student should get the same grade as they would have done had they entered the old version of the qualification. We call this approach ‘comparable outcomes’. It aims to prevent what is sometimes called grade inflation – that is, increases in the numbers of students achieving higher grades where there is not sufficient evidence of real improvements in performance. It also enables us to allow for a dip in performance. It can arise when the new qualification is first taken.”
“The threshold of public law irrationality is notoriously high. …And in all save exceptional cases the Revenue are the best judge of what is fair.”
“I cannot conceive that any decision-maker fully and fairly applying his mind to this history …. , could have concluded that the legitimate interests of the public were advanced, or that the Revenue’s acknowledged duty to act fairly and in accordance with the highest public standards was vindicated, by a refusal to exercise discretion in favour of Unilever.”
“Unfairness amounting to an abuse of power as envisaged in Preston and the other Revenue cases is unlawful not because it involves conduct such as would offend some equivalent private law principle, not principally indeed because it breaches a legitimate expectation that some different substantive decision will be taken, but rather because either it is illogical or immoral or both for a public authority to act with conspicuous unfairness and in that sense abuse its power.”
“It is generally desirable that decision-makers, whether administrative or judicial, should act in a broadly consistent manner. If they do, reasonable hopes will not be disappointed. But the assessor’s task in this case was to assess fair compensation for each of the appellants. He was not entitled to award more or less than, in his considered judgment, they deserved. He was not bound, and in my opinion was not entitled, to follow a previous decision which he considered erroneous and which would yield what he judged to be an excessive award.”
“I recognise that fairness is an important principle of public law but in determining what is fair in any particular context it is necessary to have regard to the wider public interest. I am not persuaded that as a consequence of this review the Appellant is being unfairly treated. They are in fact receiving the appropriate subsidy for someone incurring the costs involved in developing their particular technology. It is true that they were not obtaining the windfall resulting from the increase in electricity prices which they would have received had no error been made. Furthermore, it may be the case that other producers are receiving a windfall as a result of that price increase and will continue to do so until their technologies are reviewed (although as I have said there will be no windfall if costs have outstripped the electricity price). That is not, in my judgment, a sufficient reason to confer this benefit on the Appellant. It may be bad luck that but for the error the Appellant would have been treated more favourably than was necessary properly to subsidise their technology, particularly since some others will have received the more favourable treatment. It does not follow that it was unfair and an abuse of power to carry out a full review.”
“Furthermore, as Pill LJ observed in R (Bailey) v Brent London Borough Council[2011] EWCA Civ 1586 para 83, it is only if a characteristic or combination of characteristics is likely to arise in the exercise of the public function that they need be taken into consideration. …. (Perhaps more accurately it may be said that whilst the Council has to have due regard to all aspects of the duty, some of them may immediately be rejected as plainly irrelevant to the exercise of the function under consideration — no doubt often subliminally and without being consciously addressed. As Davis LJ observed in Bailey, para 91, it is then a matter of semantics whether one says that the duty is not engaged or that it is engaged but the matter is ruled out as irrelevant or insignificant).”