In addition to the inevitable and constant flow of legislation, case law, and secondary literature since the publication of the 4th edition of this book in 2004, there have been other developments of major significance in English administrative law. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 became fully operative in 2005. The actual and potential impact on English administrative law of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act 1998 has become clearer. The tribunal system has been radically overhauled; and while the full effects of the restructuring will take many years to unfold, it is safe to assume that they will lead not only to further institutional change (in September 2010 the government announced plans for a ‘unification’ of the court and tribunal judiciary under the leadership of the Lord Chief Justice) but also to new understandings of the respective functions of, and the relationship between, judicial review of and appeals from administrative decisions. As well as taking account of such changes, in this edition I have fundamentally re-conceptualized, and reorganized the presentation of, the book’s subject matter. In the first four editions the centre of gravity was legal accountability in general and judicial review in particular. In this edition, by contrast, I have set out to give an account of administrative law as a framework for public administration. Understood in this way, administrative law is concerned, first, with the institutions of public administration and their relationship with other governmental institutions (such as legislatures and courts); secondly, with legal rules that regulate the day-to-day conduct of public administration; and (only) thirdly, with the institutions and mechanisms involved in holding public administrators accountable for (non-) compliance with administrative law norms. The most obvious results of this change of emphasis can be seen in the order in which the various topics are dealt with and the way material is distributed between the various chapters. There are also many less obvious changes of emphasis and phrasing in discussions of topics carried over from the 4th edition as well as new sections to replace treatment of issues that no longer seemed so relevant.