Communities and Local Government CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Local Government Ombudsman (FRR 02)

About the LGO

1. The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) welcomes this opportunity to submit evidence to Communities and Local Government Select Committee. The LGO provides an important independent course of redress for users that have suffered an injustice from local authority services and those delivered on behalf of local authorities in England. Last year the LGO received over 11,000 complaints about services from across England.

Introduction

2. The LGO sits at the heart of the administrative justice system, ensuring that users have proper access to redress if something should go wrong with local services. Fire and Rescue Authorities are within our jurisdiction and while we have received a small number of complaints regarding their services we thought it worthwhile to highlight our role.

3. Our submission has not focused on the restructuring of fire and rescue services as outlined in the Knight Report, as this is not appropriate for us to comment on, rather we would like to take our opportunity to highlight our experience in investigating complaints against Fire and Rescue Services.

Evidence to Submission

4. There is not a typical complaint which the LGO receives regarding Fire and Rescue Services. Our jurisdiction in this area is very broad and we can investigate complaints related to a wide range of areas such as Fire and Rescue Authorities’ investigations into the causes of fires or the awarding of Fire Certificates. Despite our ability to investigate a wide range of complaints the LGO receives relatively few about Fire and Rescue Services compared with other bodies within our jurisdiction.

5. The low level of complaints is a result of a combination of factors, such as; certain elements of Fire and Rescue Services which are outside of our jurisdiction, complainants’ access to remedy through different routes such as through insurance claims, the effectiveness of local complaints systems and high levels of trust of the Fire and Rescue Services which dissuades users from wanting to complain about the service they have received. However, we suspect that individuals do not bring cases forward to the LGO because users and in some cases policy officials are unaware that Fire and Rescue Services sit within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

6. While we have a responsibility to ensure that the Ombudsman service is properly profiled it is important that stakeholders and fire and rescue bodies themselves ensure that users are fully aware of their right to complain to the Ombudsman office if something goes wrong. The appropriate use of signposting mechanisms will be fundamental in ensuring that complaints reach the appropriate complaint redress body.

7. It is not possible to determine whether the restructuring of the Fire and Rescue Service as outlined in the Knight Review would increase the number of complaints to the Ombudsman office. However, it is important that if there is any fundamental restructuring of Fire and Rescue Services that effective and transparent complaint procedures are established, with the LGO acting as the final point of redress if cases remain unresolved.

June 2013