Analysis of an Ombudsman's annual review

The intention of this article is to demonstrate how the local government ombudsmen use spin and modern marketing strategies to hide the truth about their effectiveness.

In the early days local government ombudsmen confined themselves to publishing facts, figures and information about their work. Unfortunately when they decided to bury rather than report Local Authority maladministration this had to change. So they started to use similar methods and tactics to those used by manufacturers to get kids to eat unhealthy food and adults to continue unhealthy habits such as smoking and excessive drinking. First they massage their statistics and procedures to make things look a lot better than they are, then they use spin and modern marking tactics in an attempt to get people to believe them.

To illustrate my argument I have used their 2005/6 annual review. This can be downloaded in PDF format from the local government ombudsman's own web-site by clicking here.

The first page makes the headline grabbing statement, Delivering public value.

In reality you will find that it costs in excess of £11 million to run the local government ombudsman's organisation. The ombudsman's primary role is to investigate complaints of maladministration leading to injustice. They receive some 18,000 complaints a year. That's about £640 per complaint and works out at more than the average complainant receives as a result of their involvement. When you look at it that way the organisation is clearly not delivering public value. That's a bit like running a parking scheme where it costs more to administer the scheme than the revenue generated. Obviously there are other factors to consider, if the ombudsman had others advantages, such as reducing maladministration, then you could also factor in some additional benefit. As in my analogy above, if the parking scheme also reduced congestion then it may well be worth discounting the added costs of running the scheme. Unfortunately for the ombudsman they aren't reducing maladministration so they there are no other benefits to include.

The ombudsmen declare their vision on page two.

Unfortunately a 'vision' doesn't help people here and now. People want justice now not just marketing rhetoric. After all, as they admit at the bottom of page two, they have been in business for over thirty two years.

The local government ombudsmen suggest that they investigate complaints by members of the public who consider that they have been caused injustice through maladministration by local authorities and other bodies within their jurisdiction.

That's exactly what they are supposed to do but what they say and what they do are two different things. As an example the ombudsmen state, ‘in each case they investigate whether there has been administrative fault that has caused personal injustice to the complainant'. Nothing could be further from the truth; they complete very few investigations. The others are concluded without a full investigation making it impossible for them to reach a sound and judicious decision.

The simple truth is they can't afford the time and resources to investigate every complaint properly, so they are always on the look for a reason to terminate an investigation early. As a result many complaints are wrongly decided because the ombudsman is not in possession of all the facts. A typical example is the well known Balchin's case. The Balchins submitted a complaint during 1991 and the ombudsman terminated the complaint after a quick phone call with the council. There was no prudent investigation of the facts before reaching such an unfair and unjust decision. 15 years later the Balchins were finally awarded £200,000 compensation. 15 years of extra suffering just because the ombudsman didn't want to investigate the facts before terminating their complaint. That was in 1991 so have the local government ombudsmen improved things over the years. Unfortunately not, if you read Trevor R Nunn's blog you will find that exactly the same thing happened to him during 2002 and he is still waiting for justice. Click here to visit Trevor's blog posting about this issue.

In the next paragraph the ombudsmen state that they aim to get the injustice to the complainant put right with a satisfactory remedy.

What they fail to explain is that they don't mean satisfactory as far as the complainant is concerned they mean satisfactory as far as the public authority is concerned. The ombudsmen also state that they issue advice and guidance on good administrative practice, it's just a pity they don't follow their own advice. The local government ombudsmen operate the most unfair and unjust complaints procedure of any public authority in the country.

The ombudsmen then lists the key personnel within their organisation.

What they fail to declare is that the majority of people listed used to work for the very people they are now supposed to impartially investigate. That raises another question over one of their opening statement. ‘The ombudsmen provide a free, independent and impartial service'. As we have seen, it costs taxpayers in excess of £11 million to fund the ombudsman's organisation and most of the senior personnel used to work for the people they are now supposed to be investigating. I would strongly argue that the local government ombudsman does not provide a free, independent and impartial service?'

Moving on to the chairman's introduction.

He suggests that they have seen further developments in delivering quality and timely decisions. Tell that to all the complainants they have short changed by terminating their complaints without a proper investigation of the available evidence. He also suggests that the annual review records the progress in their desire to understand what the public want and expect from our service and respond in an effective way. I can tell him in a few short words. The public want a fair, open and honest ombudsman, one who properly investigates complaints before attempting to terminate them. They want maladministration exposed not buried. Put more simply they want the local government ombudsmen to stop the spin and rhetoric and do the job they were set up to do.

The review then uses a case study to illustrate the ombudsman's work

However, it also illustrates everything that's wrong with the local government ombudsman. In essence, a council contracted out their care services but failed to realise the consequences of ignoring a catalogue of complaints about the company they had given the contract to. Therefore the company continued to deliver poor performance and the council did nothing about it. A senior citizen paid the ultimate price and lost their life through council maladministration.

The ombudsman recognised that there could be no adequate remedy but fails to appreciate that there should have been an appropriate penalty. Over the last thirty two years why has no local government ombudsman approached the government and demanded the power to penalise local authorities who commit such horrific acts of maladministration. Consequently a local government ombudsman can only seek a remedy for the injustice and in this case, as in many others, there is no adequate remedy, so the ombudsmen make themselves look absolute idiots by awarding the relatives of Miss King a few hundred pounds and a memorial.

Just what kind of message does this send out to local authorities? They will not be penalised even if people die through their acts of maladministration. The worse thing that can happen is that they may have to pay a few pounds compensation to satisfy the local government ombudsman. As far as I am concerned Local Government Ombudsmen should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

The review then moves on to delivering public value.

They suggest that now they have introduced special reports and annual letters to help local authorities they can now turn their attention to the public's needs and expectations. Thirty two years and they are only just starting to focus on the public's needs and expectations! What an earth have they been doing since 1974?

An ombudsman's photograph.

The CV next to the photo illustrates one of the main problems with local government ombudsmen. They are all die hard public authority staff. It would appear that he has never had a job in the real world. In addition it would also appear he hasn't even had any legal experience. So we have an ombudsman who is an ex council chief executive officer taking quasi judicious decisions about complaints without any legal experience. No wonder things are in such a mess.

They suggest that when recommending a remedy they try and put the person in or as close to the position they would have been if the council had acted properly.

And there in lies the problem. Even when a council is found to have committed maladministration there is no penalty. All they have to do is put the person back in the position they would have been before the act of maladministration. As a result councils have nothing to fear from the ombudsman. Even if you have suffered the most horrific injustice you are unlikely to get more than a paltry few pounds. Just ask Miss King's relatives.

Last year the ombudsman recommended payments totalling £1.67 million between 2,842 complainants. That works out on average at £563 per award. So it costs taxpayers over £11 million a year to fund an ombudsman who only recommend compensation payments of £1.67 million. Looking at the larger picture, it costs taxpayers some £611 pounds for every one of the 18000 complaint submitted to the ombudsman with an average compensation of £92 per complaint received. Even if you discount the majority of cases it still costs the Taxpayer £611 for a case in which the ombudsman recommends compensation of only £563. Surely that can't be right.

They suggest that providing advice and guidance on good practice is an important part of their statutory role.

So does this account for additional cost? The figures prove otherwise. Over the last thirty two years maladministration has steadily increased and compensation payments have also steadily increased, so the ombudsman advice and guidance to local authorities is clearly not working or cost effective.

The review them moves on to a joint approach.

with yet another headline grabbing statement. Understandably, they fail to mention that the Balchin's was a long running case because of the local government ombudsman's failure to investigate it properly it during 1991.

They don't particularly need closer working relationships with other ombudsmen, what all public sector ombudsman are keen to do is change their name as quickly as possible to distance themselves from all the bad press they have been getting. Merging with other ombudsmen would allow them to do that.

More ombudsmen's photographs.

Again the CVs next to the last two photos prove that they are ex die hard council staff with no experience of the real world and without the necessary legal skills to be taking quasi judicious decisions. I think complainants would prefer Ombudsmen to know a little about natural justice rather than history.

Looking forward.

The review suggests that they are now going to put the public at the centre of what they do. Members of the public have kept them in business over the last thirty two years? Surely customers should be at the centre an organisation from the outset not just an after thought some thirty two years later?

The review then headlines another case.

Note the headline grabbing £7,200 whilst the average compensation is only £563. Did any council staff member get reprimanded or lose their job over such an appalling case, I doubt it. In fact it looks like the ombudsmen just asked them to provide training for the staff involved. Disregarding strong medical evidence is just plain stupid and shows a complete lack of common sense. No amount of training will alleviate that problem.

Our Performance.

The ombudsman's primary role is to investigate complaints of maladministration leading to injustice. Yet during the review period only 2.2% of investigations were completed.

That means the local government ombudsmen decided the outcome of 97.8% of complaints before finishing an investigation. Quite a feat when you realise that most legal cases can't be decided before the investigation is complete. Are ombudsmen endowed with a sixth sense or do they just jump to hasty conclusions based on incomplete investigations? Whatever the answer complainants and councils are being short changed because no person in a quasi judicial role should reach a decision before getting all the facts and you only can only have all the facts if you complete your investigation.

Putting things right.

Part III of the local government act gives no statutory power to the local government ombudsmen to put things right or obtain redress for the people who have suffered injustice as a result of something the council have done wrong. Their primary role is to investigate complaints from people who claim to have suffered injustice as a result of maladministration. If they find maladministration they are supposed to submit a formal report to the council. They may recommend a remedy in the report but have no statutory power to recommend a remedy let lone obtain redress without a formal report.

The review also suggests that there are a significant proportion of investigations which do not need to be completed because a 'local settlement' is reached during the course of the investigation. - This is the most repugnant tactic ever used by ombudsmen to terminate cases to save them having to write a formal report.