Agenda item

Members are invited to note and comment on the details of the report

The Committee was presented with a range of statistical material to show the impact of LGO activity on the Council’s services throughout the year to date.  Changes to the way in which the LGO operated had had an impact on the way in which she interacted with local authorities.  Changes had been seen to the methodology used and decisions reached by the Ombudsman over the past 18 months and the report sought to alert Members to those changes and anticipate what the effects of those changes were likely to have on the relationship between the Council and the Ombudsman in the foreseeable future and whether changes in the way in which the Council managed complaints referred or investigated by the Ombudsman might be necessary.

The previous ten months or so had seen a very noticeable shift in emphasis concerning the treatment of complaints by the LGO.  The number of referrals for example, had dropped to almost zero over the past six months whilst there had been a surge in formal enquiries (usually about whether a complainant had passed through all stages of the council’s complaints process) and these had tended to lead to either provisional views (normally confirming that the Council had done nothing wrong) or final decisions (most frequently that the matter was “outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction”).

The net effect was that whilst the number of LGO contacts remained at a level comparable to earlier years, the Council was receiving more enquiries or “instant” decisions and full investigations were few and even then, findings against the Council were rare.

The Committee was asked to note that it might not be a coincidence that during the same period – when the LGO found herself with fewer resources to pursue investigations and had to “cherry pick” which to invest resources in – the number of complainants seeking to have their complaint escalated to Stage Three of the council’s complaints process had increased.  It was known that whilst the LGO’s “Council First” policy (introduced during 2010/11) was designed to deter complainants short-circuiting local authorities’ complaints processes and making use of the Ombudsman’s service to pursue their complaint against a council on their behalf, the LGO still pursued a respectable number of complaints.

In conclusion, Members were informed that more recently, the insistence that complainants return to council complaints processes appeared more routinely applied and this was borne out in the change in emphasis of the Ombudsman’s involvement in matters referred to her.  At this point in time it was not possible to predict how the situation would develop.  It might be the start of a new trend or could simply be an aberration caused by internal reorganisation and that “business as usual” would return after the current upheaval.

Either way, Members were asked to be aware that – coupled with the Gordon Report already dealt with – it was likely that there could be a prolonged period of change about to encompass the Ombudsman’s activities and that would almost certainly require some adaption by local authorities.

The Committee noted the report