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Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's courtesy in giving way once again. Does he expect it to be the norm that where the ombudsman makes a recommendation, the Department involved should follow it? If that is not so, there seems little point in having an ombudsman. In a recent constituency case--which I accept is not quite in the same area--Ofwat made a recommendation that Thames Water refused to follow. Would that not make a nonsense of the whole ombudsman system?
Dr. Wright: Almost certainly it would. However, I have said that the ombudsman system is a distinctively British invention. One of the things that makes it distinctive is that the ombudsman does not have the power to command Departments to do what he says they ought to do in redress, but, because this is Britain, Departments always do it. There is a convention that that should happen, and if Departments do not abide by it, they are marched before the Public Administration Committee and given a good talking to. Other people do these things more formally, but that is how we do them.
Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester): I am delighted to participate in the debate. I am a member of the Public Administration Committee, but was not a member when the proceedings and investigations took place. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), who chairs the Committee, eloquently said that it was right to hold a debate on the ombudsman, and I agree that it is a shame that it has taken five years to get round to it.
The ombudsman clearly has a critical role. Ombudsmen are at the cutting edge when it comes to hearing and understanding the raw concerns of our constituents about the problems and difficulties of services. They provide a link to Westminster by which those issues may be raised. For many constituents, they also provide a final chance, after many other methods have been tried, to raise concerns. People often turn finally to the ombudsman in a great deal of frustration.
Given that the ombudsman has that critical role, it is a pity that many of my colleagues who came here in the 1997 intake have little understanding of that role and the way in which Members of Parliament should work alongside that office. That is one of the concerns that I put before the Minister tonight. When I was elected I certainly did not have a clue about what the ombudsman did--from speaking to colleagues, I know that the same was true of them. I did not know where one could get hold of papers with which to refer cases on to the ombudsman. I did not know that one had a statutory responsibility to sign the document, whatever. I certainly had no idea whether, to sign it, one had to understand and take up the merits of the case. I had little idea of whether the ombudsman had the power to do X, Y or Z.
If we are to deal with some of the issues highlighted by the report, such as the use and take up of the ombudsman, we need more education and information for some of the newer Members. Perhaps some Members who are stuck in their ways also need a little reminding of how the system works.
Mr. White:
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the confusions was that one might come across two similar cases, one of which was accepted by the ombudsman and one which was not? How does one judge the right way to put forward a case? That is one of the confusions suffered by the new intake of Members in the early days.
Mr. Oaten:
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. For many Members it was trial and error. Someone came to the surgery with a case and I seemed to remember that six months before I had got away with it and the ombudsman had accepted a similar case, so I thought that I might do so again. Having a simple list next to one at surgery, showing which cases can and cannot be referred, would be a starting point.
That brings me to what is being called the Member of Parliament's filter. If Members are not clear how it works, then we must ask serious questions about that filter. I have
taken a particular view--I am sure that my colleagues have taken different views. I do not want to act as a filter. I am not going to judge individual cases. A constituent has the right to take a case forward to whatever level he or she chooses. I do not want to have to judge the case. If a Member's filter means making that judgment, I am not interested and I do not want to take part in that process. If we are saying that the filter means that one is advising a constituent whether the case is legitimate and can be taken forward or whether there is a better process, clearly the Member has a role to play there.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
As I said earlier, the hon. Gentleman must accept the fact that when the ombudsman was established he was--to use the words of the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright)--to be a parliamentary instrument. The ombudsman was to be someone who would enable us to do our jobs more effectively. Therefore, if we take out the filter, as it is generally called, we change fundamentally the conception of the job. That may or may not be the right thing to do, but one must accept that it is a fundamental change.
Mr. Oaten:
Bluntly, our difficulty with the system is that we cannot do our job effectively because the right number of cases is not getting through to the ombudsman, as the filter is not working. Perversely, a system that we put in place to build in links with Westminster and get information through to the Floor of the House is causing the problem in the first place. The filter is adding a blockage to the system. If we want it to work properly, we need to remove that filter. I see no reason why a strong ombudsman should not be able to bring issues to Select Committees and to the Floor of the House, but without the filter system. That would increase the number of cases that come through.
Helen Jones (Warrington, North):
The burden of what the hon. Gentleman seems to be saying is that parliamentary accountability and a Member's filter are not synonymous and that there are many better ways to ensure that ombudsmen are accountable to this House, perhaps through involvement in their appointment, and through regular reports and debates on the Floor of the House, while still giving individual citizens access to the ombudsman as of right and without hindrance. Would the hon. Gentleman agree?
Mr. Oaten:
The hon. Lady makes the point that I have been struggling to make for the past minute far better than I could.
The critical issue is that we get the information about what is going wrong with the system. How it comes to us does not matter a great deal. What should matter is that we know that it is coming to us in large amounts in the right areas. The filter has become an irrelevance to making that process work.
My experience as a Member of Parliament has surprised me. I regard myself as a busy MP; I have been accused of spending far too much time in my constituency. Like most colleagues, I get 500 or so letters a week and I am surprised at how few cases come from constituents asking me to refer their cases to the ombudsman. That brings me to my second concern,
which is a point that was well made by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase. The lack arises not because people do not have problems but because they do not have a clue about how ombudsmen work. The whole system is a complete confusion to ordinary folk.
There is a maze of different complaint systems and organisations. We have ombudsman fatigue. I was alarmed when the hon. Member for Cannock Chase suggested adding ombudsmen, although he may have been jesting. Beyond that, we have the Audit Commission, district auditors and local government ombudsmen. The citizens charter introduced endless different sorts of ombudsmen. Those are only some of the people and organisations involved: we have Ofthis and Ofthat. On top of that, organisations such as Ofsted, the Highways Agency and--very properly--the Child Support Agency have created their own departments to manage complaints. Devolution in Scotland and Wales has added different tiers. We also have parish, local and county councillors and Members of Parliament. The book by the hon. Member for Cannock Chase may not be available but it should be compulsory reading for constituents.
Sir Patrick Cormack:
Has the hon. Gentleman read it?
Mr. Oaten:
I have not, but I need a copy. I shall get an unsigned copy because I am sure that they are more valuable.
The systems may well work and have been added to over the years. If we looked at them on paper, I am sure that we would see a great logical interaction but they do not work in the real world for real people. I am pleased that the Government are considering reviewing the ombudsman system, but I hope that they will be ambitious and go beyond ombudsmen to consider the whole range of other organisations to which people can complain.
Another problem is the terms that we use. The ombudsman is a very British thing that was created years ago but it is a title that means little to people these days. In reality, people see things such as "Watchdog" on television. I do not suggest that we call everything "The Roger Cook Team", but these days people are much more engaged in complaining to television programmes. That is the way things are moving. I suggest that we consider the names of such organisations and try to get user-friendly names that mean something to people.
I used to advise the Audit Commission on public relations. When we talked to the press or anyone else, people would glaze over when we said that our client was the Audit Commission for Local Authorities and the National Health Service in England and Wales. If we described it as the watchdog for the NHS and councils, people would come to life and understand what it did. We need to look again at these issues because our various ombudsmen are our national watchdogs. We need to start thinking in that sort of language.
Perhaps we need one big watchdog that can really bite. Imagine one organisation that led on all these issues so that the problem of to whom people should write and whether they had got the right watchdog or ombudsman was an issue not for the complainant but for the large organisation: a one-stop shop ombudsman or watchdog. That is the language that we need to use if we are to gain people's trust and make the link with Parliament. Ombudsmen and the
present structures are not the way forward. There is no doubt that we also need good practice, proper public accountability and audit trails. Perhaps we need to split those functions off and have clear watchdogs with a much freer rein to act in the way I suggest.
None of that would be needed if things never went wrong in the first place. We have not yet had a chance to focus on the systems that we need to consider and the recommendations from some of the ombudsmen's reports on putting structures in place to ensure that complaints do not arise.
The findings of the health ombudsman's report certainly give cause for concern. It suggests a patchy service in key areas. Politically, it would suit me to say that, according to the ombudsman, complaints in the NHS have increased by 8 per cent. That would be a cheap and rather crude political jibe and it would not be accurate. I accept that complaints are not an accurate measurement of how a public service is going. One could argue that a large number of complaints is a good thing. It suggests that people feel able to complain about the service and that the ombudsman is doing his job. I am convinced that if we shifted to a system of watchdogs, we would have hundreds more complaints. Opposition Members would no doubt say that that proved that there had been underinvestment in health and local government. The reality would be that the public felt engaged in the process.
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