Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
15 MARCH 2005
MR JERRY
WHITE, MRS
PATRICIA THOMAS
AND MR
TONY REDMOND
Q100 Chairman: Of the 230 people that
are employed by the Ombudsmen, have you had an indication how
many have come from local government?
Mr Redmond: I am sorry, we have
not. We do not keep that information, but there are a number of
people who used to work with local government who work for us.
Q101 Mr Cummings: The Committee understand
you are looking for a seat on the proposed Administrative Justice
Council, perhaps alongside the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsmen. Can you tell the Committee what improvements this would
bring about?
Mr Redmond: I think the concept
of the Administrative Justice Council is that it will bring together
a number of bodies that operate within the Administrative Justice
environment and, indeed, possibly regulate it as well. It is designed
to do what is happening in so many other areas in terms of trying
to get a greater coherence in what we deliver in terms of administrative
justice—tribunals, mediators, other adjudicators, ombudsmen
from various sectors—so that it might be able to sit as
a council thinking about how we can actually present a much more
coordinated approach to the whole administrative justice system.
The reason why the Commission seeks a place on that is that we
are the body which has the most complaints of all the public service
ombudsmen and we do believe we play an important role in this
area of administrative justice.
Q102 Mr Cummings: Do you think your proposal
will meet with favour?
Mr Redmond: I hope so.
Q103 Mr Cummings: No indications at all?
Mr Redmond: Not as yet.
Q104 Mr Cummings: The Administrative
Justice White Paper also proposes a change in the jurisdiction
of the ombudsmen. Do you welcome this proposal and what impact
would it have on your work?
Mr Redmond: The jurisdiction of
the ombudsmen is something we look at from time to time. One of
the key areas we think sometimes is frustrating for complainants
is, where someone has actually gone to the first stage of legal
redress and it then appears that this may not be the most appropriate
course of action, but the courts cannot then refer it to the ombudsmen
because it is outside of our jurisdiction in large part. We would
like to be freed up to investigate such complaints. That is an
important part of the way we would like to see the ombudsmen develop.
We would also like to be able to carry out joint investigations
with other ombudsmen. You will appreciate in a local authority
sphere now there is more and more partnership-related work going
on. If we get a complaint crossing jurisdictions of the Parliamentary,
Health and Local Government Ombudsmen we have to carry out different
investigations. We think it is in the best interests of the complainant
to have a single point of reference for such a complaint. Those
are the sorts of things we would like to see unfolding in any
change in our jurisdiction.
Q105 Mr Cummings: You have been in operation
now for over 30 years, do you think it is time for a wholesale
review of the way in which you operate and the way in which you
operate in the future?
Mr Redmond: I think much of what
we do has stood the test of time; but I think it is an Act from
1974 and this is in need of review.
Q106 Mr Cummings: Do you think the ODPM
has left the review from 2003 just lying on a desk somewhere,
gathering dust?
Mr Redmond: There have been changes
since 1974 in our jurisdiction and there is a recognition, from
my point of view, that things have moved on and the local government
that is operating now is different from what it was in 1974; and
that the ombudsmen must be in a position to be able to deal with
matters in that new environment.
Q107 Mr Cummings: Is the Commission pressing
for such a review to take place?
Mr Redmond: The reasons you have
just mentioned—certainly we are pressing through the RRO,
which I mentioned; we are also looking for this Administrative
Justice Council; we are also working with the courts to see if
we can release ourselves from—
Q108 Mr Cummings: You are not taking
a battering ram—
Mr Redmond: No, we are not taking
a battering ram—that is absolutely right.
Q109 Mr Cummings: Why not?
Mr Redmond: We think much of what
we have still obtains. There are things within our jurisdiction,
within our powers, that need review.
Q110 Andrew Bennett: The setting up of
the Standards Board, that was a vote of no confidence in you,
was it not?
Mrs Thomas: We did not want it
at the time, to be honest—
Q111 Chris Mole: Very wise!
Mrs Thomas: because we did not
see us as policing local authorities' members. The Standards Board
was set up to punish members for breach of the code; we were set
up to provide remedies for complainants where we found justified
complaints being brought to us; and we saw that at the time as
being a different animal and a different approach. We felt it
might change our approach to local government; it might make them
very defensive and less willing to sort out the problems.
Q112 Andrew Bennett: You say "at
the time", does that mean your view of the Standards View
has changed at all?
Mrs Thomas: No. For a start, they
got a lot more money than we did, so maybe we were wrong. Seriously,
in Wales it was given to the Welsh Local Government Ombudsman
and he does not actually seem to have found it a problem and he
has got a separate section in the office. Indeed, in Wales the
whole ombudsman service is being united into one service. Maybe
at the time we were a little short-sighted, and perhaps it is
something we could deal with—because we still deal with
breaches of the members' code of conduct. Where there is a complaint
that a complainant has suffered injustice as a result of a decision,
we look at it; we have a protocol with the Standards Board to
enable us—
Q113 Andrew Bennett: You have a protocol
with the Standards Board?
Mrs Thomas: We have, yes.
Q114 Andrew Bennett: Masonic complaints—that
is the Standards Board, is it?
Mrs Thomas: No, it could be both,
it just depends. They are not actually that common, believe it
or not. We would need to work with them, because if a complaint
is made to them I think we might well wait for them to decide
whether there has been a breach before we look at the impact of
the decision. If there was an allegation against one member of
a planning committee and a vote was overwhelmingly in favour and
that member's vote made no difference either way, we might say,
"Well, go to the Standards Board, they will look at the issue
but, as far as we are concerned, we cannot see that even if he
should not have participated the decision would have been any
different". There is a different angle.
Mr Redmond: There is also a particular
difference between the Standards Board and ourselves, in that
we do not investigate parish councils.
Q115 Andrew Bennett: As far as the Masonic
issue is concerned, you make sure that all your staff, in some
register, declare if they are members of the Masons?
Mr Redmond: If there was a complaint
which involved maladministration we would look at that, yes.
Q116 Andrew Bennett: No, it is put to
me on occasions, by people who have complained, "Ah well,
they're all in the Masons so it will be sorted out and smoothed
over". You are confident that none of your staff doing the
investigations are members of the Masons, is that right?
Mr Redmond: Yes. I am sorry—I
thought you were talking about council staff.
Q117 Andrew Bennett: No.
Mr Redmond: Our own staff, yes.
Q118 Andrew Bennett: That is clear. What
about your relationship with Ofsted and the Audit Commission.
There must be occasions when you actually look at a local authority
and think, "Well, that wasn't quite right but it wasn't that
bad a maladministration". You keep seeing the same thing
cropping up—do you pass that information on to the Audit
Commission?
Mr Redmond: The relationship with
the Audit Commission is one of regular contact. We meet to discuss
matters of common interest. In particular, we supply information
from our complaints statistics which support the Comprehensive
Performance Assessment (CPA); so the CPA process includes information
from this Commission. We issue an annual letter to councils and
we are planning to furnish the assessors with that as part of
the CPA process, not this year but in 2006. We also have a close
working relationship on a number of other things but particularly
governance. We are both at the moment engaged in work on governance
in partnerships, which is a key concern, I know, of regulators;
and indeed councils are interested in that. As far as passing
on information to the Audit Commission specific to an individual
council performance is concerned, beyond what I have just described,
no.
Q119 Andrew Bennett: What about speed
of actually doing the inquiries When people complain you are quite
a long way down the line, and they have fretted and worried about
their complaint for quite a long time and then you take a couple
of years or so to do it. It does not help, does it?
Mr Redmond: We resolve nearly
60% of our complaints within three months, and 83% within six
months. Yes, there are others that will take longer. It is about
96% within 12 months. One recognises also that some of these cases
are highly complex; they require very careful consideration; they
require the drawing together of evidence which is not always readily
available; sometimes there is recalcitrance on the part of councils
in providing information; we need to deal with that, so it can
take time. As I said at the beginning, rigour is such an important
part of our process that we will take the necessary time.
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