Independent report on LGO calls for single chief ombudsman

The Local Government Ombudsman is independent and accountable and has undergone an impressive restructuring, but should be led by a single chief ombudsman presiding over a unified complaints-handling process, an independent report has found.

The report – commissioned by the LGO on the prompting of the Communities and Local Government select committee – said: “While the performance of the LGO prior to 2013 was not the focus of our review, it seems widely accepted that in the very recent past the LGO was not fully meeting the quality and performance standards that it set itself. Above all, this period revealed serious shortcomings in the organisational design of the LGO scheme which impacted upon its effectiveness.

“At the heart of these problems lay the former allocation of operational responsibility to two or three separate Ombudsmen working out of three separate offices. This worked against both consistency and a single corporate identity.”

The report called for the Local Government Act 1974 to be amended to remove the requirement for more than one ombudsman to be appointed.

Prior to this amendment, the LGO should be permanently restructured under the leadership of a single Chief Ombudman, it said.

“Should the Government believe it necessary in the future to appoint a second ombudsman, it should be a part-time position only, with the LGO’s delegated scheme amended to clarify a limited role as the vice-chair of the commission within the organisation,” the report added.

Other key findings and recommendations in the report were:

1. The LGO business structure, as redesigned, meets the criteria for membership of the Ombudsman Association: there were caveats in that the new business structure had only just been implemented and the new performance reporting and quality assurance framework remained to be tested. The LGO also needs stronger corporate governance arrangements than are currently in place;
2. The Ombudsman’s position within the Administrative Justice System remains poorly understood: the LGO was urged "never to let up" in its efforts to educate the public about its work;
3. More needs to be done to enhance perceptions of the independence of the LGO: “We have concluded that the LGO’s legislative design and internal policies are sufficiently strong to prevent actual bias in decision-making and meet the tests for independence laid out in the criteria. We have noted, however, that amongst some complainants there has been a perception that the LGO is too affiliated to the viewpoints of local government to be fully independent.” The report recommended, amongst other things, that the 1974 Act should be amended to disqualify former senior employees or members of a body within the jurisdiction of the LGO being appointed as a Local Commissioner. Future appointment panels should meanwhile consider the reputational risk of employing as one of its senior figures an ex-employee or member from local government;
4. The current Framework Document risks compromising the independence of the LGO: once the organisation’s transformation plan has been successfully implemented the Framework Document should be amended to maximize the governance autonomy of the LGO within appropriate accounting conditions;
5. The LGO’s decision-making procedures meet best practice in the ombudsman community in terms of fairness, openness and transparency: the LGO should, however, implement forthwith its planned policy to publish online all its decision statements of reasons and reports;
6. The LGO’s new business plan facilitates an appropriately robust and effective performance management and quality control framework: the effectiveness of the new performance reporting and quality framework should be externally reviewed within the next year, including a consideration of the timeliness of the LGO’s complaint-handling;
7. The LGO is paying appropriate attention to its responsibilities beyond complaint-handling: the LGO should continue to explore ways of optimising the knowledge that it obtains through the investigation of complaints by feeding it back in a timely fashion to bodies in its jurisdiction;
8. The accountability arrangements in place for the LGO are appropriate: the LGO should employ an independent reviewer to review complaints about the services of the LGO;
9. The LGO’s corporate governance arrangements need to be modernised and strengthened: strong arrangements are “imperative to its short and long-term health”. The 1974 Act should be amended to facilitate a more appropriate model with independent, non-executive members. Pending new legislation, the Commission should appoint three ‘participating members’ to provide independent input.

The report acknowledged that the LGO was in the middle of a “necessary” transformation process and praised its dedicated and hard-working staff.

It said: “There are some indications that the LGO has been somewhat dysfunctional in recent years and we suspect that our findings would have been considerably more negative if the new business model was not being adopted.”

Dr Jane Martin, Local Government Ombudsman, said: “We welcome this report and its confirmation that we meet the important tests of independence, fairness, effectiveness, openness and accountability. It gives the public confidence that the service we provide ensures access to redress when public services let them down.

“We also welcome the recommendations made in the report. We are actively considering how we will achieve these and will report our progress to the Communities and Local Government select committee. We look forward to working constructively with our sponsor department and Parliament to deliver the legislative changes we need to continue our development as a modern, responsive and accountable ombudsman service.”

The external evaluation was carried out by Richard Thomas CBE, Chair of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council; Jim Martin, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman; and Dr Richard Kirkham from the University of Sheffield.

A copy of the report can be viewed here.