Thanet Star - actively improving Thanet one idea at a time

Local Government Ombudsman?

Written by Matt B · first published 09/08/2008

Local blogging has a great number of sharp minds and insightfull persons writting for it and I would like to put this great resource to work on the following question: What shall we do with the Local Government Ombudsman?

In short I doubt that the Local Government Ombudsman is even worth spit and so therefore have to ask what good re they and what can be done about them?

In 1999 a MORI poll was carried out on the subject of "customer satisfaction" for the Commission for Local Administration in England (CLAE). It is the CLAE that provide the Local Government Ombudsman "service" (or lack thereof).

According to one report [...] of the 73% of dissatisfied complainants, 61% described themselves as 'very dissatisfied' with the final outcome of the complaint. the report goes on to point out that weak cases should be filtered out at an early stage (so the high lelvel of disatisfactio is unusual and not to be expected) and that 50% of people for whom the Ombudsman found in favour of were also unhappy with the result.

Clearly the Ombudsman service is a service is crisis.

What might terrify you is that 10% of the sample group for the servey were removed because might have been emotionally unsettled or abusive if contacted. Pardon me? 1 in 10 people were considered unsuitable - that's a significantly huge slice of the sample.

Was the Ombudsman trying to hide something? (Or just make the numbers look better?)

I don't know. I do know that the reort shows that those who asked the Ombudsman office for advicebefore making the complaint seemed to fair significantly better witht heir outcome.

What's more from 1995 to 1999 the level of statisfaction had dropped. In otherwords we witness adecrease in the perceaved effectiveness of the Ombudsman. With the current reported stories coming out of councillors acting like playground bullies and people ment to enforece standards (you know who you are Mr Moore) apparently not enforcing said standards I would put good money on an increase int he decrease. (In other words I think it has gotten a whole lot worse).

If you skip to page 72 of the report you will be able to see that just 2% of cases resulted in a returned verdict of maladministration and/or injustice. In other words 98% of cases that go to the Ombudsman find in favour of the council or are clsoed without further action. The odds of a finding against the council are 50 to 1 - that's some long odds.

What else I noticed was that 20% of cases ended with a "local settlement" this is the equivilant of an out of court settlement. We are not told if violence, intimidation or other threats forced the person to withdraw their claim or if a loophole in the law was used byt he council to force the case to close. We also do not know how many times the office advised the council to pay off the complainant.

In short the Ombudsman for Thanet Council is likely to be as much a danger to us as a protection. What can we do about it?

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Public Comments

Rick wrote:

The Ombudsman service is for complainants who feel they have suffered injustice from maladministration.

There is a Catch 22, in serious issues, which would filter only the least capable complainants into the Ombudsman system.

If there is a remedy at law and the complainant is capable then the Ombudsman does not have jurisdiction.

So I suggest that the Ombudsman Service has developed to protect the most vulnerable when they claim to suffer injustice whilst no more capable residents make a similar charge. And that these people are the most likely both to be wrong and dissatisfied with being judged that way.

The test of the Ombudsman would not be how dissatisfied complainants are. It would be how effective the Ombudsman is in achieving a level playing field between council and complainant in the determination of cases.

How many genuine cases would the council solicitor fail to resolve before Ombudsman involvement if the solicitor felt the complainant had a case ?

So there are two powerful filters. First for the least capable and then the council legal officer scrutiny. Not many genuine cases would remain unresolved for Ombudsman to handle.

09/08/2008 12:13:51 PM

Trevor Nunn wrote:

Here's some facts about Local Government Ombudsmen to give your readers/bloggers a head start.

100% of all Local Government Ombudsmen are ex council.

100% of all Deputy Ombudsmen are ex council.

61% of all Assistant Ombudsmen are ex council.

68% of all Investigators are ex council

During the last reporting year the Local Government Ombudsmen reported on average 0.64% of all complaints submitted to them as maladministration leading to injustice. That's less than 7 cases out of a 1000. The Parliamentary Ombudsman on the other hand reports 68% as maladministration. That's 680 out of a 1000. The individual figure prove that Anne Seex is the LGO who is less likely to find and report maladministration.

Anne Seex York 0.34%
Tony Redmond London 0.68%
Jerry White Coventry 0.9%

For more damning info

http://www.psow.co.uk/

09/08/2008 12:18:01 PM

Rick wrote:

And of course the more serious (criminal) complaints are police jurisdiction. You know that refusals of Police to record crime complaints against councillors, in Thanet, is part of the current submission to Standards Board of Kent Police Authority.

I will email the jurisdiction submission to you not for publication.

09/08/2008 12:20:09 PM

A Johnson wrote:

The problem is that there are too many locally elected representatives protecting the status quo. Trafford is a prime example that proves councils can and do save vast sums of money through maladministration.

Councils and their solicitors can, and often do, ignore the LGO. The LGO are toothless tigers that have to suck up to local councils and their solicitors to survive because they have no real powers.

They are only there to give the poor old citizen the impression that there is a system of administrative justice at local level. The difference in figures between the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman(PHSO) and the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) proves there isn't.

09/08/2008 12:48:54 PM

Rick wrote:

Yes but Trevor there is an MP filter into the Parliamentary Ombudsman system still isn't there ? So there would be a tendency for only strong cases to proceed.

Years ago I was caught out on limitation (the time to get the complaint in via your MP)

Sir John Stradling Thomas MP sent letters to Attorney General Patrick Mayhew and Police Minister Earl Ferrers. And the replies suggested that in both cases the letters Sir John wrote may have been edited by civil servants before ministers read them.

Sir John was planning a Parliamentary Ombudsman call for inquiry at the time he died.

Labour's Huw Edwards won the by election and refused to administer the complaint to Ombudsman.

By the time the tories got the seat back at general election (Barrister Roger Evans MP) and submitted the matter for investigation they were told the complaint was out of time.

Roger then made a Section 13 Coroners Act 1988 appeal to Attorney General for access to High Court to seek a quash of the suicide verdict at the heart of the case.

And was denied access by the AG power of absolute secret custodianship of public interest.

In theory you can judicial review the Attorney General. But only on grounds he acted unlawfully or irrationally.

To establish either of those arguments you would have to ask the Attorney General to set out the reasons for his decision. And his civil servant will reply pointing out that it is secret.

Charging up a cul de sac to prove the end is blocked.

At risk of criticism from Ken Gregory I write this because Matt has grasp about separation of powers. Judicial and constable Crown independence of govt.

I applied for legal aid to Judicial Review the AG. My argument was that since I was the constable in the case public interest is defined by Coronation Oath, Constable Oath and constitution. (Constable is under Coronation Oath duty to discharge duty to Judge in Open Court not Govt law officer in secret)

The Attorney General officer replying to this argument was the same Kevin McGinty who has signed the immunity certificate for the current Rosemary Nelson Judicial Inquiry.

But it did not come to issue as I was refused legal aid. (With a Thanet solicitor sitting on the Legal Aid Board appeal panel)

But be assured Matt some of us fight for justice. Even if sometimes we may appear less articulate than others ?

(Read the Constable Oath)

Best wishes

09/08/2008 12:49:31 PM

Trevor Nunn wrote:

Rick

Are Police complaints still handled by ex Police?

09/08/2008 01:06:29 PM

Ann wrote:

Rick

What about all the cases the LGO and council bury between themselves as local settlements? Some 25% of all cases are bought off by local councils to avoid a finding of maladministration. The LGO exclude these when they report the level of maladministration the PHSO doesn't. It's all about hiding the true level of local council maladministration from local people.

Regards

09/08/2008 01:11:52 PM

tparry wrote:

One of the really bad things about taking a case to the LGO is that when against the complainant the Local Authority can use it to justify their actions and to rubbish the case and any suggestion that there is any wrongdoing. 'The LGO finds nothing wrong therefore Mr so and so is talking nonsense.

09/08/2008 01:20:20 PM

Thomas wrote:

I thought these comments were supposed to be about Local Government Ombudsmen?

09/08/2008 01:41:28 PM

Thomas wrote:

I believe the Ombudsman that investigates complaints about Thanet Council is one Jerry White.

Before becoming Local Government Ombudsman on 1 March 1995, Jerry White was Chief Executive of the London Borough of Hackney. He has served in local government since 1967, including senior positions in the environmental health and housing departments of the London Boroughs of Islington, Haringey and Hackney.

Under the latest 7 year rule new Ombudsmen can only remain in power for 7 years. This rule was introduced for a reason! Have a guess at what it may be?

09/08/2008 02:11:30 PM

Trevor Nunn wrote:

The article asks What can we do about it?

The answer is not a lot. Local Government Ombudsmen are unaccountable (the Parliamentary Ombudsman is not).

Rick suggests that the MP filter blocks many cases from getting to the PHSO and that accounts for the substantial difference in the level of maladministration reported. Firstly the filter only applies in some instances and secondly it's not a filter it was designed to keep elected representatives in the loop. Only a very stupid MP would try and block a citizens right to complain, no matter what he personally thought about the strengths and weaknesses of their case, for it is not their job is is clearly the job that they and their fellow elected representatives thought fit to give the PHSO.

Best wishes

09/08/2008 02:47:29 PM

Thomas wrote:

Your council settled 12 complaints last year at a cost of �29,000 to stop the ombudsman from having to issue 12 reports finding maladministration. If the council didn't commit any acts of maladministration just what were they paying to bury?

A local settlement is agreed between the council and the ombudsman. The complainant has no say in the matter. All a council has to do when faced with a serious complaint is to ask the ombudsman to settle it locally. That means that their maladministration is buried for another year and the local electorate are none the wiser as to just how bad their council really is. The spin of benefit for the ombudsman is that it saves them having to write a report. One which would leave their decision open to a judicial review.

And that Rick is why the local government ombudsman finds such low levels of local authority maladministration. Not because there isn't any but because they let the council pay them off. If the PHSO settles a case they still report it as maladministration. Why don't local government ombudsmen and local councils?

09/08/2008 04:40:37 PM

Matt B wrote:

That's just over �2,415 per person. A nice windfall if nothing was done wrong but a cheap payment for an injustice.

Judging by the flood of response I think that I have just touched upon something that merits significantly more investigation.

My increasing sense of ill ease at the administration of the area was well founded. Frankly I find it all terrifying and now see why so many local bloggers choose to remain nameless.

I don't blame them.

Baring actual provable criminal actions a councilor can do whatever they like!

10/08/2008 12:39:04 PM

Thomas wrote:

The national average for a local settlement is only about �600. One of the first things the LGO do after receiving a complaint about a council is offer to settle it so it doesn't show up as maladministration.

However, even when the ombudsman does report it as maladministration they minimise the consequences for the council. Here is an example of how a case was eventually settled (not with this council). Council maladministration led to the death of an old lady. The Ombudsman concerned ordered the council to pay her relatives �1,000 towards a memorial. No it's not a misprint, Council maladministration helped kill an old lady and they got away with it by paying towards a memorial for the person their act of maladministration helped kill. The full story can be read here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/...

10/08/2008 01:16:39 PM

Trevor Nunn wrote:

In addition to what Thomas has said

Even when the Ombudsman reports it as maladministration (which is a very rare thing for them to do. In this case 34 times out of every 10,000 complaints submitted to the Ombudsman concerned) They still help the council out of their difficulties by recommending paltry settlements. The irony being that on the one occasion this Ombudsman has actually awarded a complainant anything like a proper settlement Trafford Council ignored the Ombudsman. And therein lies the problem, whilst councils are allowed to ignore the Ombudsman the only way the Ombudsman can get them to play ball is to award paltry settlements on the understanding that they are not recorded as maladministration.

This is a petition from the family trying to get the justice that Ombudsmen can't deliver.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/...

10/08/2008 01:33:37 PM

Matt B wrote:

Isaw that petition and was a ittle shocked that the LGO has no teeth in that respect.

11/08/2008 10:20:02 AM

Trevor wrote:

That's why they normally suck up to councils. In this case though they rubbed the LGO up when they asked to be transferred to another LGO because they actually thought she was too negative. Too negative? She buries more maladministration than any other Ombudsman, they couldn't have had a more pro council Ombudsman. Only 34 complaints out of every 10,000 reported as maladministration.

http://www.publicservice.co...

11/08/2008 02:31:33 PM

Matt B wrote:

That does not seem right at all. I would claim to be shocked but actually I think I suspected that something like this might have been the case all along.

13/08/2008 11:34:21 AM

Thomas wrote:

The biggest obstacle to overcome is the general publics' reluctance to do anything about the situation. In France for example, there would be riots in the street but in England we don't appear overly concerned that our civil rights are slowly being eroded by stealth. We are now in the ridiculous position of a local council being able to take criminal and punitive action against an individual for putting the wrong rubbish in a bin. Whilst on the other hand they can help kill people and get away with it because all they have to face is an impotent Local Government Ombudsman. And then all they need to do is offer to locally settle the case by paying towards the cost of a memorial for the person they helped kill and it won't even be recorded as maladministration.

Thomas

14/08/2008 03:46:28 AM

Matt B wrote:

If this scares you wait for what I publish next.

14/08/2008 08:04:36 AM

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