Local Government Ombudsman (open.gov.uk/lgo/)

Member Name: Aufklaerung

Product:	open.gov.uk/lgo/
Date:	04/11/04 (755 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: If you are very lucky you might have a positive outcome.

Disadvantages: Not impartial, Ignores arguments and evidence, Compensation awards paltry

I was quite astonished to read a glowing review of the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) service by a Dooyoo member who has not had the first-hand experience of taking a complaint to this institution. I have had first-hand experience of the LGO, work closely with other people who have also had first-hand experience, and take a very close and concerned interest in the structure and activities of this institution. I am unable to provide an encouraging account of its activites.

CUSTOMER DISSATISFACTION
Hidden away on the LGO’s own website are the disturbing results of its own MORI polls. The1999 MORI Customer Satisfaction poll reported a 73% dissatisfaction level amongst people who had taken their complaint to the LGO, with 61% describing themselves as ‘very dissatisfied’ with the final outcome of their complaint. Even around half of those complainants in the 1999 poll who represented the very small number who achieved a finding of maladministration causing injustice, were said to be dissatisfied with the outcome. The 1999 MORI poll report described its customer dissatisfaction findings as 'broadly similar' to the 1995 MORI poll. I had waited with anticipation for the next MORI Customer Satisfaction survey, only to discover that it has been replaced by the 2003 Customer Awareness Survey, so the public dissatisfaction statistics with the outcome of complaints to the LGO are no longer being investigated or provided. Given the very high rates of public dissatisfaction with the LGO as exposed by the 1999 and 1995 polls, I should have thought that a further survey of the same kind is certainly needed, rather than the by comparison innocuous poll that has replaced it.

IS THE LGO OFFICE REALLY IMPARTIAL?
Well, let’s have a look at the background of senior staff. At the time of writing (November 2004) two of the three current English Local Government Ombudsmen are former Local Authority Chief Executive Officers. All three current Deputy Ombudsmen worked in local government before joining the Commission, as did the current Deputy Chief Executive. An organisation that recruits its senior staff almost entirely from local government inevitably does not attract the same level of public confidence as one with a wider range of experience. One wonders how much automatic sympathy these senior members of staff feel for people doing their old jobs in local government, and how they might themselves have felt if a rigorous and truly impartial Local Government Ombudsman had conducted investigations into the allegations of maladministration made against their own councils when they held senior office in local government.

ARE THE LGOs APPOINTED BY AN INDEPENDENT BODY?
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) has disclosed that when the last Ombudsman was appointed, one member of the three-person selection panel represented the Local Government Association. The ODPM's office refuse to divulge details of the other members of the panel, but do state that they had substantial knowledge of local government. It is clear that when complaints are made about maladministration by local authorities, those being judged have a substantial say in the selection of the judge. Obviously this selection process is not one that would command public confidence and it seems to contravene the spirit, if not the letter, of the guidance from the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. The Ombudsmen are not appointed for a fixed period and that is also not in accordance with the OCPA guidance.

EXTREME UNDERREPORTING OF CONCIL MALADMINISTRATION
The LGO will only entertain complaints where in their view there is prima facie evidence of maladministration with injustice. So if they ‘investigate’ a complaint, and this results in the LGO finding that injustice has been caused to the complainant by the bad practice of a council, and the council is asked to pay that individual a sum in compensation, then anyone capable of basic logical thinking would deduce that there has been a finding of maladministration with injustice. But no. Despite this being a de facto recognition by the LGO that the actions of a council amounted to maladministration with injustice, the LGO reports the vast majority of these cases as a ‘local settlement’. This is an entirely inappropriate policy, and leads to extreme underreporting of maladministration by local councils, depriving the local media and indeed taxpayers of the information about the councils they pay the LGO to provide.

What kind of incentive does the Local Government Ombudsman provide to local authorities to follow good professional practice when they know that the LGO will generally find in the council’s favour when citizens complain, and that the LGO will in any case report the vast majority of cases of ‘maladministration with injustice’ as the euphemistic ‘local settlement’? (By the way, to my thinking, a ‘settlement’ should involve the agreement of the injured and the culpable parties.) The LGO’s office is in fact encouraging local authority maladministration as a result of the real (rather than published) actions, policies and values of this institution.

How does this underreporting express itself in the LGO’s Annual Reports? Of the 12,057 complaints submitted that he said he could investigate in 2002/3, the English Local Government Ombudsman reported that only 145 cases (1.2%) represented maladministration by local government. However, there were a further 3,735 cases (31%) that he reported simply as 'local settlement', and although in fact this meant he had found maladministration with injustice in all these cases according to his published guidelines, he chose not to report them as such.

This means that the Ombudsman under-reported local government maladministration in his Annual Report 2003/4 by a staggering 2,576%. In other words, for every complaint that the Ombudsman identifies as 'maladministration' in his Annual Report, there are 26 cases of
maladministration that he has not named as such. Of course, if the Ombudsman does not report a case as maladministration, neither will the media, sparing local councils the kind of media attention that upholds democratic accountability and ensures transparency. Even where the Ombudsman finds maladministration causing injustice, but decides to describe it instead in his Annual Report as a 'local settlement', many of the financial awards he suggests as compensation are completely incommensurate with the suffering experienced: paltry, insulting sums of money.

IS THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT OMBUDSMAN HELD ACCOUNTABLE TO ANYONE?
The LGO office seems to enjoy the privilege of wholesale unaccountability, and they can themselves commit maladministration with injustice with complete impunity because of the apparent absence of any effective structure to ensure the institution behaves impartially, fairly, and with respect to human rights. The only way of challenging an Ombudsman's decision is by Judicial Review, which can cost tens of thousands of pounds, and where a successful challenge to the Ombudsman is very rare. Judges are very reluctant to find against the LGO. The Ombudsman can also simply agree to take another look at a complaint during a judicial review if he thinks a judge is going to find against him, thus avoiding a negative ruling. The appellant then has to make a fresh appeal for judicial review when the Ombudsman later decides to keep with his original decision.

HOW MUCH TAXPAYERS’ MONEY GOES INTO LGO COFFERS?
The sums of money provided by the taxpayer to the LGO are not inconsiderable, and ironically the outcome of funding this biased institution is to encourage bad practice on the part of council officials who are aware they have very little to fear from the government watchdog. In 2004/5, the salary paid from our taxes to the most senior of the three Ombudsmen (the Commission Chairman) is £147,198, (linked to the salary of a High Court Judge) and in 2004/5, the Annual Grant from Government (i.e. our taxes) to the Ombudsman's office is £11,058,000.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT OMBUDSMANWATCH
I shall never forget the experience of encountering such appalling injustice and bias from two separate (but so clearly allied) government institutions: first the council, and then the Local Government Ombudsman. There is, however, a campaign, Local Government Ombudsmanwatch, which provides a forum of support to victims of LGO injustice, some of whom have been driven to stress and depression-related illnesses by their experience, even to thoughts of suicide, and others of whom have been unfairly caused huge financial losses. Within this organisation, colleagues can share their experiences with others who are in a position to empathise. The campaign also has as a key objective the determination to expose the cosy link between the LGO’s office and local authorities.

LGOwatch supporters are encouraged in their long-term objective of eventually achieving the abolition of the Commission for Local Administration (the LGO’s office) in its present form by an important recent precedent: the founding of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) on 1 April 2004, which replaced the discredited Police Complaints Authority, abolished on 31 March 2004. It is interesting to consider the backgrounds of senior staff of the IPCC with regard to the domain they investigate: the IPCC has a chair, deputy chair and 15 Commissioners, and at the time I researched (July 2004) not one of them is a former police officer. Of its six directors and four regional directors, currently only four incumbents are former police officers. The LGO's office is certainly unable to claim such detachment between the former occupations of its senior staff, (or, we believe, many of its Investigators,) and the institutions it ‘investigates’.

I for one am extremely unhappy to know that the tax I pay contributes to sustaining in existence an institution that pretends to hold justice as its core value, yet betrays the existence of blatant vested interests in its actions, and as a result encourages further maladministration from local authorities with a sense of arrogant impunity. Those interested in this issue, or who have experienced first-hand injustice from the LGO (there are many of us), may like to have a look at the LGOwatch website at www.ombudsmanwatch.org .

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