Appointment of the Local Government Ombudsman and Vice-Chair of the Commission for Local Administration in England - Communities and Local Government Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-52)

DR JANE MARTIN

12 OCTOBER 2009

  Q40  John Cummings: Yes.

  Dr Martin: No. I know a lot of people who have worked in local authorities and I regard their professional integrity very highly.

  Q41  Mr Betts: Just in terms of your experience, you are saying you are one step removed from being a local government officer and being able to perceive maybe the consumer's point of view but, on the other hand, the fact that you have not got any particular experience, say of planning and housing where a lot of the complaints going to the Ombudsman Service are in those areas, do you think that is a particular weakness?

  Dr Martin: No, I do not. I draw to your attention that I have two research degrees where I have honed very finely my skills to ensure that evidence gathering methodologies are appropriate. I am used to handling evidence, I am used to analysing evidence and bringing intellectual rigour to bear. You are right to point out that I have not worked in particular in a housing role but I am very confident that I can pick up a brief and make sure that I have the appropriate technical information should I require it.

  Q42  Sir Paul Beresford: The response to that would be that you are academic, you have not actually done it, you have not had your hands dirty and you have not been at the front.

  Dr Martin: I would regard myself as an academic but also as a manager and a practitioner, so I hope that I would be able to straddle both areas.

  Q43  Sir Paul Beresford: How will you deal with a vexatious complainant?

  Dr Martin: With care and consideration. I think the important thing as Ombudsman is to treat all complainants fairly. I am very conscious that a vexatious complainant can take up a lot of energy and can be seen to be dominant in terms of taking the attention of the Ombudsman. One of the pieces of work that I did as an academic was to look at the way in which so-called "angry parents" work with schools and I found that the most important thing was for the school to be more dispassionate about the complainant and to make sure that you focus on the facts of the case, and that is what I would do with a vexatious complainant.

  Q44  Mr Betts: Can I just ask about job satisfaction. I think people tend to do a job better when they actually enjoy doing it. In your past roles, whether it has been academic research or other jobs you have had, regulation and the other units you have worked in, to some extent you have been able to set the agenda there and you had some control over what you did, trying to influence things, trying to take things in a certain direction, but this job is not like that, is it, you are sat there waiting for someone to complain about somebody else's mistake and you are not in charge of any agenda, you are totally reactive. Is that going to give you job satisfaction?

  Dr Martin: Whilst what you describe is certainly the case I am also looking forward very much to being Vice-Chair of the Local Commission and working with my colleagues to shape the way in which the service is delivered. Whilst I do not for one minute minimise the important role of Ombudsman, as you have put it, in waiting for the next complaint and dealing with it, I regard the role as being much broader than that. In any event, I am really very pleased indeed to have the opportunity to take on what I believe to be a substantial public role. I have been a supporter of, interested in and somebody who as a practitioner has exalted public service organisations over my career to be very, very alive to the issues of public accountability and I regard it as a privilege to have the opportunity to be selected for this role.

  Q45  Chair: Can we just turn to some of the criticisms that there have been of the Ombudsman Service, in particular criticisms that it has been a "toothless tiger". Do you think it needs greater powers? In particular, do you think it should be able to order councils to comply with its recommendations within a certain timescale, for example?

  Dr Martin: I refer you in part to the answer I gave earlier which is to highlight the point that the Ombudsman Service is about dispute resolution. What I have found interesting in my current role in working for the Local Better Regulation Office and working with local authority inspectors who are enforcing regulation and one of the things that has become clear to me in that role is that the opportunity to enforce, to prosecute if you like, to require compliance is not necessarily the most important tool in the armoury, if I can put it that way. What is most important is to be able to be proactive in advising and supporting best practice and compliance with good practice in administration. From what I understand so far the Ombudsman Service has a very high level of compliance with its recommendations on behalf of local authorities. I am not sure at this stage from what I know that I would necessarily agree with your description of it being a "toothless tiger".

  Q46  Chair: Do you think there is a greater role for the Ombudsman in checking up maybe a year down the line whether the recommendations have really made a difference?

  Dr Martin: Certainly I think that would be a very helpful thing to do. As any mechanism of public accountability as part of the regulatory machinery of government, if I can put it that way, the Ombudsman is only one tool and I know that the Ombudsman Service increasingly works with regulatory bodies and the more that we could make sure there is an effective feedback loop, if I can put it that way, so that the greater lessons learnt from the work of the Ombudsman support best practice, I think that would be an improvement. I would like to look at that as one of the first things if I take up the role.

  Q47  Chair: Would that include greater feedback to the complainant? For example, if there were recommendations the complainant would be told that there were those recommendations but they too would not know whether the council had actually really acted on them.

  Dr Martin: Absolutely. That is a most important fundamental point with any interaction or involvement of the public with local government or other public agencies at the local level. It is very important indeed that local people do get the feedback and see that not only have they had redress for a particular complaint but that is feeding into future practice, process and, indeed, culture of organisations.

  Q48  Sir Paul Beresford: What do you do if you have had a full inquiry, full investigation, you support the complainant, it is a clear case and you write and explain this to the local government concerned and they throw it out?

  Dr Martin: I understand that it is the practice of the Ombudsman certainly to make that public if that is the case and in many cases there is nothing like the oxygen of publicity perhaps to bring influence to bear. I think that is a good thing. I do take on board the point you are making and it is absolutely essential that future practice is influenced by the recommendations of the Ombudsman.

  Q49  Sir Paul Beresford: Do you take the Government's report, and I am thinking of the Equitable Life report, and send in a second report?

  Dr Martin: The other thing that perhaps we could look at is the way in which we tie up and align the Ombudsman work perhaps with other forms of accountability, for example the scrutiny function of the local authority, which you may know I have had a lot of dealings with. We have a consultative White Paper at the moment, do we not, looking at the way in which the scrutiny function might be expanded. It is just possible, is it not, that there may be some tie-ups we can make there to ensure that the internal scrutiny within the authority is adequately taking forward the recommendations of the Ombudsman.

  Q50  Alison Seabeck: At the moment the Ombudsman's decisions can only be challenged in court. For a member of the public who is dissatisfied with a decision that may be a step too far, despite the fact that they may feel natural justice is not being done. Do you think there should be alternative options or do you think the court route is the right route?

  Dr Martin: I recognise the point you are making that sometimes for members of the public that does seem to be a step too far, however it is consistent with other similar forums. The main point for the public surely is to make sure the forms of redress and public accountability are very clear-cut and simple and easy to understand. The more we can avoid complexity in the system then I think that has got to be a good thing.

  Q51  Alison Seabeck: Should you be avoiding incestuousness in the system, if you like, in that if a member of the public felt something was not done fairly or reasonably by a particular member of your staff or team that complaint would be investigated internally at the moment, would it not?

  Dr Martin: Yes.

  Q52  Alison Seabeck: Are you comfortable with that because I know you have some strong feelings about accountability and have made that very clear?

  Dr Martin: Yes, I take your point and I can see that there would be some merit perhaps in having some further external scrutiny of the Ombudsman Service. At the moment the Ombudsman Service is accountable to Parliament through this Committee and there may be ways in which we could improve that in the future.

  Chair: Any further questions that Members have got? No. Thank you very much, Dr Martin.





 
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