The fact that Parliament had also decided to take matters into their own hands brings up questions about the Poor Law Commission. They set up a Commission of Enquiry and became directly involved in investigating the conditions and management of Andover. This suggests that Parliament were questioning the Poor Law Commissioner’s ability to handle the Andover case after they had let it get so out of control. Even Parliament was losing confidence in their Poor Law Commissioners.
The scandal involved was publicised and reported widely by The Times newspaper. Being as most readers of The Times were wealthy, educated people, they were most likely the ones who were paying the poor law rates that went towards paying for and maintaining the workhouses. There is no question that these people were concerned about the mismanagement of finances at Andover and probably had questions about how money was being spent in their union. As well as being ratepayers, these people would be voters and would hold a lot of sway in elections. This put a lot of pressure on Parliament to instigate improvement with the Workhouse system and the Poor Law Commission.
The situation at Andover led to investigations into other workhouses and their conditions. It was claimed that some were at least as bad as the Andover case. This meant that the public would have realised that the Andover case was not an exclusive one and that the state of the current workhouse system was a shambles. It also meant that ratepayers would realise it was likely that their local workhouse was being run badly too. This put even greater pressure on Parliament to instigate workhouse improvement after the Poor Law Commission had let the workhouses get into such a terrible state.
Eventually, the Andover Workhouse Scandal caused improvements of the workhouse system. After the investigation, the Poor Law Commission was heavily criticised. Following the Andover Workhouse Scandal and seeing the ways that the Poor Law Commission handled the situation, it is evident that Parliament realised that they needed more control over management of the Poor Law. In 1847, it was abolished and replaced with the Poor Law Board, by Act of Parliament which had greater power and was directly responsible to Parliament. This was likely to have an impact on the management of the Poor Law by allowing Parliament to be much more in control.
To conclude, I would say the Andover Workhouse Scandal was pivotal in triggering improvements with the poor law system on a national as well as local scale. Locally to Andover, the workhouse master was forced to resign. On a national scale, after a Parliament investigation into the Andover case, investigations into other workhouses went underway and eventually the Poor Law Commission was replaced with a much more efficient system. However, I think that the most critical consequence of the Andover Scandal was the way that it was publicised and reported, meaning that the public knew of the terrible state of the workhouses and this would have put a lot of pressure on Parliament to bring about improvements.