The order of repair

First — make the record exist

1. A statutory duty to record decisions when they are made. English law obliges the state to archive records, not to create them — so a decision destroyed before it is written defeats every safeguard downstream. The WhatsApp case is the proof by failure; the one case in the corpus where the protection fully holds is the proof by success: a record that exists, witnessed, survives its own committee. proved by government-by-whatsapp breaks · records-rewrite holds  vehicle the Covid Inquiry's recommendations on ministerial messaging; the creation gap in the Public Records Act
2. A duty of candour with criminal teeth. Infected blood, Grenfell and the maternity cases share one shape: the institution grading its own harm. A duty of candour on public authorities — with personal, criminal consequence for concealment — is the legal form of "the record cannot be quietly absent." proved by infected-blood-coverup · grenfell-warnings-ignored · maternity-harm-downgraded  vehicle the Hillsborough Law (Public Authority (Accountability) Bill) — promised, introduced, and fought over; its teeth are the thing to watch
3. A general duty to give reasons for adverse administrative decisions. There is still no general duty in English administrative law to say why — only patches of context. The algorithm that suspends a claim without a reason, the one-word inspection verdict, the citizenship stripped on a basis its subject cannot see: all reduce to this gap. proved by automated-welfare-reasons · ofsted-single-word-judgment · citizenship-deprivation-basis  vehicle none current — recommended since at least 1988; the oldest unenacted step on this page
4. Reverse the computer-evidence presumption. Horizon convicted on a presumption that the machine is reliable unless the defendant proves otherwise — a presumption the defendant had no access to rebut. Small, precise, and already consulted on. proved by horizon-unauditable-evidence  vehicle the Ministry of Justice's 2025 call for evidence on computer evidence, post-Horizon
5. Publication by default, at the moment of the act. Every slow-walking lever — the missed deadline, the stacked extension, the profiled requester — acts on the request; a record public by default has nothing to request. The VIP lane shows the same fix on spending: each award published as it is signed, with its route. proved by foi-slow-walking · procurement-vip-lane  vehicle the Procurement Act 2023's transparency duties, in force from 2025 — the principle, generalised beyond procurement

Second — bind a forum to the record

A record only matters if something must answer it. The corpus's middle finding is that the UK's forums are optional in practice: deadlines without consequence, recommendations without follow-up, watchdogs that must wait to be asked.

1. Deadlines that enforce themselves. The 20-week EHCP limit is breached routinely and costs the breacher nothing; around 95 per cent of appeals succeed, which convicts the refusals — but only for the families who survive the appeal. A missed statutory deadline should carry a default: the request granted, or escalation triggered, automatically. proved by send-ehcp-refusals · foi-slow-walking  vehicle SEND reform, long promised and repeatedly deferred; FOI enforcement practice
2. Recommendations tracked to their fate. Inquiries and internal reviews issue recommendations that vanish between reports; the next death repeats the last. A standing body should hold every recommendation to a public status: implemented, or visibly not. proved by dwp-death-reviews-secret · grenfell-warnings-ignored  vehicle a House of Lords committee recommended exactly this monitoring body in 2024
3. An ombudsman that can start by itself. The public-services ombudsman still needs a complaint routed through an MP and cannot open an investigation on its own initiative — which means patterns (a vetting cluster, a mass of unopposed convictions, a forfeiture total) have no forum until individuals fight one case at a time. proved by police-vetting-ignored · single-justice-procedure-opaque · us-civil-asset-forfeiture  vehicle the draft Public Service Ombudsman Bill of 2016 — stalled since
4. Automated-decision safeguards, restored. The exam algorithm and the welfare model show what an unexplainable adverse decision does at scale. The honest headwind: 2025 data legislation loosened these safeguards rather than tightening them. This step swims upstream, and says so. proved by exam-algorithm-downgrade · automated-welfare-reasons  vehicle restoration of the protections diluted in the 2025 data reforms

Third — the humane layer

This is where "supportive" lives, and it is exactly what no protocol can do — the corpus refuses to pretend otherwise. What the first two stages contribute is that every duty here becomes arguable, costable, and enforceable the moment the record exists.

1. The state's data used for the person. The DWP held the earnings data while the carer's debt grew, then prosecuted the growth; roughly a third of Pension Credit goes unclaimed by people the state could identify. A duty to act on held data — notify before the debt, auto-award where the entitlement is computable — turns the machinery of enforcement into machinery of prevention. Owed is this page's working sketch of the idea. proved by carers-allowance-overpayment  vehicle take-up campaigns exist; the step is making prevention a duty, not a campaign
2. Remedy at the speed of the harm. A protest is one day; review at legal speed arrives after it. Where the harm outruns the court, the law needs interim remedies that default toward the right being exercised, not the restriction being obeyed. proved by protest-conditions-no-basis  vehicle no single vehicle — interim-relief practice, said plainly
3. Advice where the lottery of persistence decides. A right enforced only by appeal selects for the persistent, the represented and the lucky — the corpus calls it rationing by attrition. Legal aid and tribunal capacity are the unglamorous end of this roadmap, and nothing above substitutes for them: no record fixes an unrepresented person. proved by send-ehcp-refusals · carers-allowance-overpayment · single-justice-procedure-opaque  vehicle none current that matches the scale of the gap

What this roadmap refuses

The corpus's discipline carries over. No step above legislates wisdom or kindness — the sequence makes cruelty and neglect visible, dated and attributable, which is the precondition of a humane state, not its substance. Substance stays where it belongs: with courts, with Parliament, with the people the record finally arms.

And the corpus's three preconditions bind law as much as protocol: the record must be made (stage one fails without candour-backed sanction), a forum must act on it (stage two is institutional, not technical), and someone must be answerable at all. The corpus's eight breaks — the cases where no willing adopter exists, from messages destroyed before any record to a detainer who profits from the detention — are not arguments against the record. They are the strongest argument on this page for legislation with consequence: where nothing consents, only law reaches.