Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
DR JANE
MARTIN
12 OCTOBER 2009
Q20 Anne Main: That is a slightly
different role, I would have thought, than what you are being
asked to face. Would you say three Ombudsmen are enough? If you
are discussing some sort of triage system, are three Ombudsmen
enough?
Dr Martin: That remains to be
seen. It is possible that there will need to be extra capacity
in the service, at this stage it is a bit difficult for me to
judge without any further information about the new responsibilities
as they come on board.
Q21 Anne Main: In which case then
how do you think the new legislation relating to complaints handling
for individual school issues and individuals purchasing their
own adult social care will impact on the LGO's ability to manage
complaints effectively?
Dr Martin: Again, you have already
touched on this point but it will require the Local Government
Ombudsman to think very carefully about the way in which there
is sufficient capacity to absorb that new work. I am familiar,
for example, with systems such as Lean Systems thinking whereby
you have to think very carefully about the demand that is coming
into the system and look at different ways of managing it. I think
until I am in the post it is a little difficult for me to give
you any more information than that.
Q22 Sir Paul Beresford: This is going
to be a huge area in numbers but smaller than the actual individual
complaints, how are you going to get consistency?
Dr Martin: I will be led by a
process which I will ensure is rigorous in terms of the evidence
that is brought to bear on which I and of course my other colleagues
will be making judgments. So I will be very much led by that process.
Hopefully we will work closely together to ensure that there is
consistency.
Q23 Alison Seabeck: You have talked
about the process, you have talked about the importance of the
process in dealing with pressures. You also though have a degree
of discretion within your role as to which ones you do and which
ones you do not. Is there a risk that if there is a significant
number of cases that, using your discretion, you may err on the
side of, "Well, perhaps the evidence is not quite as strong
there" and will put it to one side and will that lead to
a drop in the public's faith in the role of the Local Government
Ombudsman if they think your discretion is being used too widely?
Dr Martin: I will certainly do
all I can to guard against that. I am very well aware that public
trust and confidence in this Service is absolutely paramount.
For all complainants to be treated fairly is most significant.
Although I can certainly use my discretion I will be led by the
evidence and the facts that are in front of me each time, and
take each case on its own merits.
Q24 Alison Seabeck: Can I ask also,
there is a public perception amongst some of my constituents that
the Local Government Ombudsman has not very much power. There
are also concerns that you are often dealing with local authorities
who are, we have heard earlier, commissioning out services. How
strongly do you feel that you have enough power to deal with those
services which are not within the direct control of the local
authority but which are being delivered on behalf of the local
authority to members of the public?
Dr Martin: I suppose that it is
important to make sure that the local authority is aware that
it is the authority, whether it is commissioning services, out-sourcing
services, et cetera, and so we will need to be very clear
about where the responsibility lies for that. My understanding
of the Service to date is that there is a very high level of take-up
of the recommendations of the Ombudsman and I would expect that
to continue.
Q25 Alison Seabeck: This is probably
a bit early in your interest in this role. Do you have any feel
about the timescale under which local authorities are implementing
Ombudsman's decisions? We have evidence that they are, indeed,
taking an Ombudsman's decision and acting on them but I have a
sense, particularly from local authorities in the South West,
that some of them are really dragging their feet on that. Is there
anything within your remit which allows you to apply pressure
to insist that they act?
Dr Martin: Formally of course,
no there is not, but I think this is where having good relationships
with local authorities which are not too cosy are important, but
it is worth remembering that the Ombudsman is about dispute resolution
so I would hope that the ways in which we resolve disputes are
acceptable to both sides. That is a way in which you will get
the most speedy response and appropriate response.
Q26 Alison Seabeck: How do you get
the public to understand that the LGO really is doing the job
that they think you ought to be doing? How do you spread the word,
if you like, about the role you have and the fact that you are
doing it in a certain way?
Dr Martin: I think that is one
of the areas that I would like to look at actually because it
seems to me that the Ombudsman to date does not get out, as it
were, through a range of media effective public information. Having
had a look at the annual letters that go to local authorities,
the special reports, they seem to me to be rather dry and to rely
quite heavily on statistical information. I would like to look
at ways in which the Ombudsman can get out more information about
the nature of the work that is done and also around the lessons
learnt for both local authorities and in the end for the public.
Q27 Alison Seabeck: It is interesting
you used local authorities. Are there any specific demographic
groups that you think you ought to be targeting separately?
Dr Martin: Certainly for a public
service like this one should always be very mindful of the more
vulnerable groups. We tend to talk a lot about consumer complaints
in relation to choice in public services but, of course, we should
always remember that for many people who are less able to have
choice, who cannot exit services, as it were, then it is important
that we get the message out to them in particular. I have noted,
for example, that the Ombudsman Service already has good arrangements
in place to support young people and I would like to be assured
that the same is true for elderly groups and perhaps for particular
minority ethnic groups in the community.
Q28 Sir Paul Beresford: What do you
think of local settlements and buying out complainants?
Dr Martin: Local settlements run
at around 25-27 % of the Ombudsman work at the moment. They can
often be an effective solution because they cut down the time
that a complaint can take so it means the complainant gets a more
speedy redress. As I say, if it is about dispute resolution then
where there is a willingness on both parties' part to settle at
an earlier stage, if I can put it that way, then that has got
to be a good thing. Having said that, I think I would want to
be reassured that any local settlements were adequate and appropriate.
Q29 Sir Paul Beresford: What about
the idea of buying off complainants to shut them up?
Dr Martin: That does not sound
to me like a very sensible way forward.
Q30 Chair: Can I just pursue that.
When you talked about dispute resolution when you were responding
to Alison Seabeck is there not also the point that a single dispute
may pick up that the procedures of the authority need changing
and that is what might be lost if you get a local settlement.
What would you do to stop those lessons being lost?
Dr Martin: As I think I alluded
to before in answering Alison Seabeck's question, I would like
to see the Ombudsman being much more proactive in spreading the
word around lessons learnt. Whilst there may be some advantages
to local settlements, as I have tried to point out, that does
not preclude the fact that, as you are also rightly suggesting,
for some local authorities they need to look at their processes,
perhaps their structures and the culture of the organisation and
those messages should be got through as well. I do not think that
these things are mutually exclusive.
Q31 Sir Paul Beresford: How are you
going to be able to tell if there has been a local settlement
if you are not notified, the complaint is just withdrawn?
Dr Martin: I would need to do
some more investigation into that.
Q32 John Cummings: You tell the Committee
in your CV that you have worked in many advisory and academic
roles during your career. What experience do you have of making,
and taking responsibility for, difficult decisions?
Dr Martin: You will have seen
from my CV that I have been involved in setting up three national
organisations. Whilst that can be very energising it is also quite
difficult to make sure that those organisations meet the public
policy brief. For example, making decisions at the Centre for
Public Scrutiny about the way in which that organisation should
be taken forward, working to a board and making sure it was acceptable
to local government was quite a challenge. Similarly, when I was
part of the senior team at the National Centre for Involvement
for the NHS we had to take some quite difficult decisions and
make fine judgments about what would be acceptable to the NHS
in order to develop our brief for the organisation. Last but not
least, the organisation I am working for at the moment, the Local
Better Regulation Office, set up by the Better Regulation Executive
to support local authorities, required us to think hard about
the kind of strategies and interventions that we would make with
local authorities in order to pursue our brief and to make sure
the organisation was fit for purpose.
Q33 John Cummings: How comfortable
do you feel about taking decisions in the absence of any legal
definition of maladministration?
Dr Martin: I would be guided by
the reputation and the track record of the Local Government Ombudsman
Service, but I am very happy to take decisions based on robust
processes of evidence gathering and analysis of evidence and I
will ensure that they are as effective as they absolutely must
be.
Q34 John Cummings: Could you just
expand upon what you just advised the Committee in relation to
decisions that have already been made by the Ombudsman on maladministration?
You are not suggesting that you are using a set of precedents,
are you?
Dr Martin: No, because that is
not the way in which the Ombudsman Service works but I think it
will help me get more than a feel for the way in which decisions
have been taken in the past and that will help me as a new person
on the team.
Q35 Mr Betts: The Ombudsman obviously
has to come to a judgment between two competing views of a particular
situation and, therefore, independence and being seen to be independent
is absolutely paramount. Do you think it is a problem, therefore,
that you have a declared political activity?
Dr Martin: No, I do not think
it is a problem. I have been, and still am, a member of the Labour
Party, however I will be relinquishing that membership before
I take up the role of Ombudsman. I am not required to do so, but
that is a decision I have made because I do think it is absolutely
important that not only should I be independent and fair in all
my judgments but I should be seen to be so as well, so I want
to avoid any doubt about that.
Q36 Mr Betts: But your political
affiliation, or past affiliation, will still be well-known, so
do you think that is going to in any way compromise decisions
that you make, that people might think you are reaching a decision
against a Conservative council and you are going to be that bit
harder there?
Dr Martin: No, I hope not. It
certainly will not be the case. Perhaps I could just reassure
you by saying one example where I have worked across local authorities
and parties. For example, for the Centre for Public Scrutiny where
I was promoting new scrutiny arrangements I have worked across
local authorities of all different persuasions.
Q37 Mr Betts: In terms of independence,
it is not just about being independent, it is about being seen
to be independent as well. I think there is a feeling amongst
some members of the public that the Ombudsman is not really independent
at all because they are all bureaucrats together, they have got
cosy relationships with council officers, they are all working
in the same business and a poor little outsider making a complaint
does not stand much chance because it is always going to be weighted
against them.
Dr Martin: I hope that my career
and track record to date will be quite a strength in this area
because I can demonstrate that I have worked with governing bodies
in schools, I have worked tirelessly for service users, for patients,
I have researched the way in which parents work in schools and,
of course, as a service user and parent of two children who have
gone through the state system I do have a very good understanding
of the point of view of the public, the citizen, the consumer,
as well as the official, if I can put it that way.
Q38 Mr Betts: A lot of people working
in the Ombudsman Service are actually ex-local government officials,
are they not? Do you think that is a problem, that they will tend
to see things from a local government perspective, an organisation
perspective, rather than from the consumer's perspective?
Dr Martin: All I can say is I
hope I bring a balanced perspective and I will certainly remind
those I am working with that although all the work of the Ombudsman
must be absolutely fair and must give due regard to both sides
of any question, however the power differential, if I can put
it that way, between institutions of the state and the public,
we need to be very mindful of that potential imbalance.
Q39 John Cummings: Would you view
it as poachers turned gamekeepers?
Dr Martin: For the colleagues
who have come from local government?
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