This major study of the workings of the British social security adjudication system, the first since the tribunal structure reforms of 1984 and the benefit changes of 1988, examines the decision making processes in Department of Social Security local offices and at the social security appeal tribunals. A unique nationwide study based on hundreds of interviews with claimants, social security staff, and tribunal members, as well as on observation of hundreds of appeal hearings, Judging Social Security highlights the divergence between the way the system ought to work and its operation in practice. In the process, it debates whether the system's current emphasis on procedural fairness actually serves to mask the reality of the restrictive and rigid rules governing entitlements.