Neil Jinks, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Education

On an application to set aside a teacher prohibition order, the Secretary of State must consider the professional conduct panel’s recommendation but must make her own decision. The assessment of future risk is predictive and evaluative. A decision-maker must make reasonable inquiries, but the court intervenes only where no reasonable decision-maker could be satisfied that it had the information necessary to decide. Administrative reasons are read flexibly and as a whole.

Continued denial of misconduct cannot automatically be treated as proof of no insight or future risk. It remains a relevant and potentially significant factor, and may leave no evidence from which insight can be found. Insight and risk are distinct but closely connected. The claim was dismissed because the Secretary of State lawfully distinguished admitted from denied conduct and was entitled to find no clear and unequivocal insight into the latter.

A former headteacher challenged by judicial review the Secretary of State’s refusal on 19 December 2024 to set aside a prohibition order imposed after a first professional conduct panel found professional misconduct. A second panel, which accepted it could not rehear the original findings, recommended that the order be set aside. The decision-maker had the two panel decisions but not the underlying written evidence, documents, submissions or hearing transcripts, and maintained the order, allowing a further application after one year.

Permission was granted on grounds that the Secretary of State had failed to make sufficient inquiries or address the correct question, had equated continued denial with lack of insight and unacceptable future risk, and had given inadequate reasons or acted irrationally. The court had to decide whether those grounds made the refusal unlawful.

1. Disposition. The claim for judicial review was dismissed. The reasons and rationality ground overlapped with the first two grounds and was not considered separately. There was no order as to costs.
2. Statutory and policy scheme. Under the Teachers’ Disciplinary (England) Regulations 2012, the professional conduct panel makes findings and recommendations, but the Secretary of State decides whether a prohibition order should be made or set aside. The Secretary of State must consider the recommendation but may reach her own conclusion, including on predictive risk. The policy framework prevents a set-aside application from becoming a rehearing of the original allegations and requires the panel to identify the evidence considered and its reasons. This was consistent with Daniah v Secretary of State for Education [2025] EWHC 2810 (Admin) and MacCallum v Secretary of State for Education [2024] EWHC 2454 (Admin).
3. Inquiry and reasons. The public law duty of inquiry required reasonable steps to obtain the information necessary to answer the question correctly, but intervention was justified only where no reasonable authority could have been satisfied, on the inquiries made, that it possessed the necessary information. That approach followed Secretary of State for Education and Science v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council [1977] AC 1014 and R (Balajigari) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWCA Civ 673. Reasons had to be read flexibly and as a whole, rather than as if they were a statute. The second panel had made no finding on insight into the matters Mr Jinks continued to deny. Since the Secretary of State did not alter the panel’s factual findings, the issue identified in Wallace v Secretary of State for Education [2017] EWHC 109 (Admin) concerning access to further material did not arise. The Secretary of State was entitled to conclude that the panel had provided all relevant information available from it.
4. Denial, insight and risk. It was an error to equate denial automatically with lack of insight and risk of repetition. Denial remained a relevant and potentially significant factor. It could indicate lack of insight or leave no evidence from which insight could be found. Insight and risk were distinct but closely connected, and lack of insight could be a potent indication of risk. Applying Hawker v Health and Care Professionals Council [2022] EWHC 1228 (Admin), the court held that the Secretary of State had not treated denial as conclusive. She considered the admitted and denied allegations separately and was entitled to conclude that the evidence did not demonstrate clear and unequivocal insight into the denied misconduct or remove the risk of setting aside the order.
5. Costs. The Secretary of State’s wording was misleading and did not accurately describe the basis of her decision. That unfortunate wording materially contributed to the challenge, so the interests of justice required no order as to costs.

This was a first-instance judicial review. The judgment records that permission was granted in part by HHJ Carmel Wall on 26 March 2026 and that oral renewal of the refused ground was rejected at the hearing. No appellate decision is stated.