After the Second World War much of life was heavily controlled. There were many restrictions left over from the war, whilst new controls had been imposed by the government in the course of creating social change. Many people found that some control or other cut across their expectations: it seemed to them that some power, commonly called ‘they’, possessed unlimited power to stop them from doing what they reasonably wanted to do. People who were disgruntled, justifiably or otherwise, found plenty of lawyers ready to champion their cause. Lawyers were able to reduce the discontents to apparent order: ‘they’ were the executive, and the trouble came from ‘decisions’ which ought to be made by the courts, or at least in accordance with certain basic principles. It was becoming clear that a general inquiry by a Departmental Committee or Royal Commission was needed when a special impetus came from the affair of Crichel Down in 1954.

In 1955 the Lord Chancellor appointed a Committee on Administrative Tribunals and Enquiries under the Chairmanship of Sir Oliver Franks, and the Committee reported in 1957. Most of the recommendations were accepted by the government and they were carried out by the Tribunals and Inquiries Acts in 1958 and 1966, consolidated with other provisions in the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1971, and by regulations.