Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
Item 4 is an evidence session that has been arranged with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman so that we can follow up issues that have been raised with the committee by the SPSO and in recent public petitions to the Parliament. I welcome Jim Martin, the ombudsman; Emma Gray, head of policy and external communications; and Niki Maclean, director of corporate services, all from the SPSO. I invite Mr Martin to make opening remarks.
Jim Martin (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman)
Thank you, convener. I welcome the opportunity to come back and discuss further some of the issues that we raised before.
I will highlight two issues. On the first issue, I have written to the committee to seek your advice on how to establish an appropriate procedure for handling the special reports that I may lay from time to time. As you know from our previous meeting, no such reports have been laid in the 10 years that the SPSO office has been running. A special report would be laid if a recommendation by the ombudsman was not followed through by a body that is under my jurisdiction.
I raise that issue because special reports in England and Wales have been laid in the UK Parliament, and reports have been laid in the Houses of the Oireachtas in Ireland, and the manner in which they have been handled has been the subject of some controversy. The special report that was laid in Ireland led to a major party-political debate and dispute. As I said at our previous meeting, I am anxious for this Parliament to agree in peacetime a procedure for dealing with special reports. As I suggest in my submission, it appears that the most appropriate route would be to go through the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, for the reasons that I have set out.
Any dispute about an ombudsman’s decision should be subject to judicial review, so there is a clear legal route in that regard. I am more concerned that, when recommendations for redress for citizens have not been followed through by bodies that are under my jurisdiction, we have a procedure that enables Parliament to take a view on the body’s stance—as opposed to the ombudsman’s stance—on the recommendations. That seems to be a standards issue rather than an issue for a subject-based committee. We are talking not about an appeals process but about a process by which recommendations can be enacted or not enacted. I would genuinely welcome the committee’s advice, help and suggestions on the correct route forward and its views on that proposition.
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body is currently responsible for the SPSO’s internal governance. I hope that, when we look at the issue of special reports, we can find a way of making it possible—or even a requirement—that the ombudsman, whether that is me or my successors, should bring the section of their annual report that relates to a specific subject-based committee to that committee on an annual basis.
At present, this committee receives my complete annual report, while the SPCB looks at the governance, the audits and all the rest of it. However, I say with the greatest respect that this committee is not expert on health or education, and certain issues that arise in the ombudsman’s report would be of benefit to the subject committees, so I would like us to consider that approach.
The second issue is that today is the last day for responses to the strategic plan that my office has set out for the next four years. I am aware that the statutory parliamentary body for responding to that is the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, which has—I believe—received the plan and approved it. However, I would welcome, now or in the coming period, any views that the committee may have—either collectively or as individual members—about the strategic plan.
I am sure that the problem with the four-year strategic plan for 2012 to 2016 is evident to you. I do not know what the remit of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman will be in 2016. I do not know whether the office will exist after the referendum on an independent Scotland, or whether the Scottish Parliament will have various increased powers. It is difficult to plan ahead for what might happen.
We are a demand-led organisation, in that we operate on the basis of cases that are brought to us. I can tell you the increase in the number of complaints that we received in January this year compared with January last year. In January last year, we took in 257 cases to look at. This year, we took in 358. That is an increase of almost 40 per cent. In February, we took in even more—376. Through Niki Maclean’s good handling of cases, our productivity is up, so we are keeping pace but, if demand continues to increase at that rate, we will have to think seriously about the service that we can provide to Scotland’s citizens. If other areas of jurisdiction are brought within my remit, we will have to consider whether the resources in the strategic plan are fit for purpose. The plan is based on what we know and not on what we anticipate, but things could well change.
Finally, I am aware that the committee is considering a petition that refers to the SPSO. If I can help the committee in its deliberations on that, I will gladly do so.
Thank you. The last time we met, you suggested that a special report was likely to be laid. What is the timescale for that, if it is still likely? I agree that we should discuss the matter in peacetime, before that happens, and try to get a procedure in place.
I am pleased to say that peace has broken out, convener.
So we have a bit more time to find a way forward. Has an approach been made to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee about whether it is the appropriate body?
No. I felt that it would be discourteous to go to that committee before coming back to you, as I said I would. I felt that I should come here and air the subject with you. I wanted to give you my paper and take advice from you on how best to proceed.
Okay. Do members have any questions on special reports?
If you could lay special reports before the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, as the relevant body, would that take the heat out of some of the complaints about your office, which have arisen because some people believe that you have not been fully independent in some matters that you have handled? Would that help to remove some of the criticism of your office?
No. I will expand on that. I am not aware of having been accused of not being fully independent. That is a new one—I have not come across that before.
As I explained to the committee, it is the lot of an ombudsman that people and groups will challenge decisions even after time has passed. That is the experience throughout the United Kingdom, in Ireland and in Europe. I already have the power to lay special reports. What I am suggesting to the committee and the Parliament is that we do not have a procedure for handling such reports when they are laid. It is more likely that reports will be about bringing into line bodies that are under my jurisdiction and ensuring that they carry out decisions, rather than being about the exercising of independence.
11:30
I will follow that up, although I will have more questions on other issues. I should clarify the point about being fully independent. Not so long ago, it was asserted to the committee that your office might be influenced by political parties. Have they ever attempted to influence your office or your decisions?
If we go back two years, I said that my office had been put under undue pressure by an MSP in relation to a case and that other MSPs had done that, too, from time to time. At that time, I raised the issue with the Presiding Officer and with others. I am pleased to say that, since that matter was aired, no MSP or anybody else—from a political party or elsewhere—has tried to apply any pressure or the same pressure to my office.
Good morning. You make a valid point about introducing in peacetime the procedure for handling special reports. Some of the comments come from the experience of how the Equitable Life case progressed through Westminster. The Scottish Parliament is now in new territory—we have a majority Scottish National Party Government and not even the checks and balances of a coalition Government, so the Government has a majority on the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee. In view of that, is that the best committee to be the adjudicator or the body that deals with the procedure for handling special reports? Should we have an ad hoc committee with balanced political representation?
The appropriateness or otherwise of using the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee is for parliamentarians, rather than me, to decide. In the structure of parliamentary committees, that seems to be the committee that most closely deals with the kind of process that we should put in place.
We should remember that, when the Equitable Life case in England and Wales went to the Public Administration Select Committee, the United Kingdom Parliament had a majority. That committee dealt with that, as select committees operate independently of the Government and the majority in Parliament. We should have such a committee to look at such matters.
In Ireland, a major report was issued that attacked not whether the Government should have to pay compensation for an outside body’s actions but whether compensation should go to citizens as the result of a direct decision of the Government. That became a political football, and I want us to avoid such a situation. An ad hoc committee might do the job but, if we are a mature Parliament, we must be prepared to trust our MSPs to take decisions sometimes that do not necessarily require them to exercise their party-political preference.
I agree that that is the ideal. The UK Parliament has a lot of experience of committees operating in exactly the way that you hope that our Parliament would operate, although that has not been the case here to date and we are looking more at new ground.
I do not think that that is a fair point to put to the ombudsman.
I think that it is a fair point—
The point is very party political and it castigates lots of people in lots of committees.
I think that it is a fair point to say that we have a built-in majority and no checks and balances, such as a second chamber.
I do not think that it is fair to ask the ombudsman about the point.
It is fair enough to get the ombudsman’s view.
I rule that it is not fair to put the ombudsman under such pressure.
I will have to accept that ruling.
Mr Martin, if you issued a special report on a health issue, it would be within your scope to take it to the Health and Sport Committee. Has simply using the mechanisms that are in place been explored?
I am not certain that such a route is open to me. All that I can do is bring a report to Parliament. It is then for the Parliament’s executive to determine where that report goes.
I said at the previous meeting that we are not talking about an appeals procedure. One of the reasons for taking the report away from a subject-based committee would be so that it could be considered according to the principle of whether a recommendation had been fully carried out or not. My advice to the parliamentary committees is to be careful not to set yourselves up as appeals committees, because if you do that, you will be extremely busy.
My understanding is that you have never published a special report, but if you were to publish one, would it be a public document?
Yes.
I understand your point that such a document would not necessarily go to a parliamentary committee, but if it was a public document, any committee would be perfectly able to pick up on it. Committees determine their own work programmes, so they would be able to consider it. What is your perspective on that? Is this about creating a formal mechanism, rather than being reliant on an informal mechanism?
If I publish a special report, it is important that we all know where we stand and what the rules are. The last thing that I want to do is to embarrass Parliament by saying, “Here’s a special report—what are you going to do with it?”
For example, if I were to publish a special report stating that a body under my jurisdiction had given no cogent reason for not offering someone an apology, I would find it difficult to understand which subject committee that would fall under. I am not certain that giving it to the committee that was closest to the initial report’s subject area would be the right way forward, because the issue would be about a body under my jurisdiction not following a recommendation that I made under the powers given to me, as ombudsman, by Parliament. This is about the authority of the Parliament, and I am not sure that that should be considered by individual committees.
Clearly, you cannot give any commitment, because we do not know how likely special reports are to be a regular feature. There have not been any so far, which I presume is a good thing. Are they more likely to occur in the future?
My impression is that we are getting closer to such a situation all the time. Increasingly, I have to use powers of persuasion on bodies in different sectors to avoid a situation in which I have to write a special report to ensure that they carry out my recommendations. Ombudsmen tend to operate on the basis of persuasion and naming and shaming. We often go close to the wire and threaten to send a special report to Parliament. If I do that, I need to be sure about the procedure, as does Parliament.
Finally, why do you think that you are having to go closer to the wire—I hesitate to use the word “coerce”—more regularly than in the past?
I detect that some bodies—this is particularly true of local authorities and health boards—are more concerned about what they perceive to be reputational damage. I am also concerned that, when some bodies consider my recommendations, they suggest that, because I do not have the power to enforce them, they can see who blinks first. I make it clear to bodies under my jurisdiction and others that I do not blink, but in order to do that, I need to have a process.
You have suggested that some parts of your annual report should be considered by subject committees. Although there is some sense in that, I wonder whether it would result in a patchy response. I suggest that the annual report should continue to be considered in its entirety by this committee and that other committees should consider particular sections of it and report back to us, so that their experiences can inform our examination of the report.
In principle, I would not be unhappy with that, but you should bear in mind what the annual report is. It is about the SPSO’s performance in a business year, and a section of it is about how we have used public resources and spent public money, and about the policies that we are following. At the moment, it falls to the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body to consider that.
Historically, the annual report has gone to the Local Government Committee, the Local Government and Transport Committee, and now the Local Government and Regeneration Committee. My concern is that I should be able to raise the issues in my annual report with the appropriate MSPs, and even if the Parliament’s view was that this committee should continue to receive the whole report, I would want to be able to talk to the Health and Sport Committee, the Education and Culture Committee and other committees about what is in it. I do not want to lay my annual report before four or five different parliamentary committees.
Possible devices for receiving the report could be that the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body receives the full report and it then goes to each committee, that this committee receives it and bits go to the other committees, or that the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee receives it and it then goes to the other committees. Provided that we have access to the committees to inform their debate, I am relatively relaxed about where the report goes, but the corporate body must receive the financial and audit part.
I recently asked the corporate body a question about audit, and I got an answer that was basically about the financial side. The first objective in the draft strategic plan is:
“to provide a high quality independent complaints handling service ... by being accessible and dealing with all enquiries and complaints impartially, consistently, effectively, proportionately and in a timely manner; and by producing clear, accurate and influential decisions about complaints.”
How is that audited? I am talking not just about when complainants are unhappy about your decision, but about when they are happy with your judgment. How are complaints audited to ensure that they have been dealt with in that manner?
I will ask Niki Maclean to speak about the quality assurance process in a moment.
You should bear it in mind that my organisation has two kinds of audit. Our external audit, which is now done by Audit Scotland, looks at our finances, management, risks and so on, and the internal audit looks at our policies and procedures. When I came into office, I was not at all happy about the quality of the work that we were producing, and I went public about the fact that I thought that some of it was substandard.
I was not happy about the processes and procedures, either, so we changed them. Once we had put the new ones in place, we had our internal audit people look at them and tell us whether they were at an acceptable level. We have been comparing our procedures with those of ombudsmen in the UK, Northern Ireland, Wales and Ireland, and they are all moving to our process and procedure, and quality assurance models. Niki Maclean will give you more detail on the latter.
11:45
Niki Maclean (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman)
Ultimately, if someone is dissatisfied with a case decision, they can go down the judicial review route. That check and balance on every decision is the starting point from which to consider how our work is scrutinised.
As for internal checks of our casework, we have manager-level reviews to ensure that our approach to a case is proportionate to its seriousness. I do not say that lightly. I think that we would all assume that every case that comes to our office is important to the individual who brings it. However, I am sure that you will appreciate that some of our recommendations have more implications for an organisation’s systems than others.
With regard to quality assurance, we sample check a number of cases every quarter. That system, which was introduced about a year and a half ago, has been audited by our internal auditors and the results of our QA checks are also fed into our audit and advisory committee. The organisation’s approach to quality checking is rigorous. I am sure that it could be improved—after all, no system is perfect—but as Jim Martin has pointed out, other ombudsman services have adopted our model, which suggests that it is not a bad benchmark.
Every time you appear before the committee, I, for one, receive a number of e-mails from folk setting out where they think your office has failed. It would be very wrong of me to comment on individual cases, but perhaps I can play devil’s advocate, as I did when you appeared previously.
Given people’s suspicions of internal audit processes, would it be beneficial for an external rather an internal auditor to look at certain cases? It has to be said that I am not suspicious in that respect, but I wonder whether, in order to deal with criticism—no matter whether it is right or wrong—you would be better to get someone from outside the organisation to look at cases. As I said, that would include not only cases in which people have been dissatisfied with your decision, but cases in which folks have been satisfied, to ensure that an equitable approach is being taken.
I realise that, when I appear before any committee or go anywhere, people get inundated with e-mails. I understand why that might happen, but that does not make the views that are expressed correct. We need to get that in proportion.
Our internal auditor is actually an external auditor and comes from the Scottish Legal Aid Board. When we say “internal”, we are referring to the stuff that they look at rather than where they are employed. As an external internal auditor, they are free to look at anything they like. We also have an independent person who examines service delivery complaints; we have just appointed the former deputy financial ombudsman for the UK, David Thomas, to that position. Anyone who is unhappy with the handling of their case can take it either to me or—if they are unhappy with that—to an external person for consideration.
I have to say that it gets a bit wearing to have people telling you and others that the work of my office is not up to standard. It is demoralising to my very committed people; indeed, some of the e-mails that I think you see say that my people lack investigative skills, are not committed to getting to the truth about complaints or are somehow in the pockets of local authorities and health boards. Frankly, I am getting tired of it.
Every time that I have a staff meeting after a meeting such as this, I say to my staff, “Look, I know that this has been said in public and on the parliamentary record, but I have every faith in you.” I really do not think that the other ombudsmen in the United Kingdom and Ireland would be using our office as the model and suggesting that people from Poland, France or wherever should come to study our methods if we were not getting something right. At some point, I would like to come to the committee and discuss what we do rather than the agendas of other groups.
I am getting on my hobby-horse now, but I have to say that the existence of a website or a letter on headed paper does not make a credible organisation. It is important for my staff to know that you understand that and that you are prepared to give our people the support that they need.
I have a final question on what Mr Thomas is doing. What percentage of the cases that you deal with in which there is dissatisfaction end up on the desk of Mr Thomas?
Mr Thomas looks at service delivery concerns, but only a very small percentage of the cases that we receive involve people bringing service delivery complaints.
Do you have any idea of what that small percentage might be?
In 2010-11, we received 12 formal service delivery complaints on 11 cases.
That was an interesting exchange, not least because it allowed the ombudsman to put his position on the record. I want to follow up on the issue of checks and balances. You referred to the fact that individuals who bring matters to you have the right to judicial review—the right to take whatever complaint they brought to you to the courts. I presume that they are likely to do that only if you have not found in their favour. I wonder how much that is a legal check and balance rather than a real check and balance, as we all appreciate the significant cost that would be involved in someone taking a matter to court. How often does someone decide to take the matter to court when you have not found in their favour? My assumption is that it does not happen very often.
You are right. Let me be clear about a number of things. The legislation was put in place by this Parliament, which decided that the route down which people could go would be judicial review. That is not an ombudsman’s decision, it is this Parliament’s decision. When people come to us, they have the opportunity to challenge a decision that we have made. When I first came to the office, it was possible for three or four challenges to be made to any decision. That meant that we never arrived at a decision—matters would run on for a year, 18 months, two years or, in some cases, three or four years. The critical thing about an ombudsman’s office is that the ombudsman is at the end of a complaints process and is the person who must take the final decision. I often hear that there should be an appeals process beyond the ombudsman, but I guarantee that, if there is an appeals process beyond the ombudsman and that appeals process does not find in people’s favour, they will want an appeals process beyond the appeals process.
Sorry—I am not questioning that. There is probably a lot in what you say. What I am saying is that, if judicial review is a check and balance, we need to know how often it is utilised to know whether it is a real check and balance. Perhaps it is unfair to ask you to provide the exact figures now—you have confirmed that it is not used very often—but it might be useful for us to have any figures that you have.
I can tell you that I receive in my mailbag on a weekly basis correspondence from people threatening to take matters to judicial review. A number of people have sought legal aid to do so, although none of them has succeeded in getting legal aid as far as I know. In the 10 years that the office has existed, only one body under jurisdiction has gone to judicial review.
It has happened only once.
It has happened only to one body under jurisdiction.
Okay. That is useful to know.
The other point to remember is that, by the time complaints come to our office, they will have been through a two, three or four-stage complaints process. We are the final point in the process. As Jim Martin said, if a further stage were added, we would be talking about a six, seven or eight-stage process of reviewing complaints, which would involve a lot of public funding.
I should make it clear that I am not recommending any particular line of action. I am just trying to establish the facts.
It is clear that you are frustrated by the criticism. I think that we all feel that we are doing a good job and that it would be nice if we never got any criticism but, equally, none of us is infallible, so it is reasonable to look at points that are raised, regardless of who raises them, to see whether they stack up.
You mentioned internal audit, but when you were probed a bit further, you said that it was actually external audit, in that the person who comes in to do the audit is from the Scottish Legal Aid Board. Are the accountability arrangements as robust as those that exist in England for the external auditing of the English equivalents of the ombudsman and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education? What are the external auditing arrangements in England?
I am sorry—are you referring to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman or the Local Government Ombudsman?
The Local Government Ombudsman. I think that the education body in England is subject to the same auditing arrangements, but the Scottish bodies are not. If I have understood you correctly, your interpretation of external audit involves the auditor from SLAB coming in.
I am not certain that I understand your question, but I can clear up the internal audit issue. “Internal audit” is a technical term. We have external auditors and internal auditors. The external auditor is the auditor who comes in from outside to look at your resources and funding and how you have spent and accounted for them. The internal auditor looks at your internal processes. The internal auditor has never been anything other than someone from outside coming to look at the internal processes.
I am sorry, but I did not understand exactly what you were asking me about England.
How is that done in England?
You want to know how the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman—
—is audited externally in England.
My understanding is that it has external and internal auditors, but we can find out and give you the information.
It would be useful to make that comparison.
The correspondence that we received mentioned the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council. What role does it play in relation to your organisation?
I am an ex officio member of the AJTC Scotland committee. I attended it for my first year in office, but we formed the view that there was not much on that committee’s agenda that impinged directly on my office and that we could not contribute much to that body’s work, which is mainly about looking at the tribunal system to see whether it is working and sending individuals to sit in tribunal meetings and report back. I took the view that it was not a good use of my time to spend half a day every month attending that committee.
However, we look at the committee’s agenda and, when there are issues on which we can make a contribution, we send an appropriate person—usually our policy officer—to it. We worked with it through the summer. Because it is to be abolished, it is considering what to recommend should follow on and we have helped it with that work. Last week, I met the chair and other senior members of the committee to discuss the proposals that they will put forward. That is our relationship with the AJTC.
You mentioned the possibility that your jurisdiction could be added to. Given the volume of cases that you have at the moment, that seems quite a tall order. In what respect is it proposed that your functions could be increased?
It is remarkable to me how many reviews of the SPSO there have been in the past 10 years—the number is quite significant. They all seem to end up with our getting extra things to look at. We now look at complaints about water and complaints from prisoners about Scottish prisons, and we have just taken on prison health complaints. We have been asked to establish the complaints standards authority. There is discussion about where complaints about social work and social care should go. Such complaints might well come to us.
If there are increased powers for the Parliament over what I used to call social security payments and so on, such issues will fall within the jurisdiction of the SPSO, so I will need to think through carefully the skills and number of people that I will need, and therefore the resources that I will need if that happens. I raise the issue because our corporate plan for the next four years has been written in peacetime—if I may use the word again—and we are conscious that during the next four years there might be significant changes to what we are asked to do.
12:00
We have drifted into a discussion about the strategic plan, which we can consider, along with the petition and other issues.
Mr Martin, you said that you are disappointed by some of the criticism that has been levelled at you and people who work for you. From what I read, I think that you are very popular, given the number of complaints that come your way. Are you confident that you can continue to deliver a high standard of service, given the increase in complaints?
Is there a reason why complaints have increased during the past period? Are complaints ending up on your doorstep because processes elsewhere are failing or not being followed?
I have made it clear in the organisation that an increase in the quantity of complaints should not impact on the quality of investigation. If that means that we need more resource, we will ask for more resource; if we do not get more resource, we will have to consider the timescales to which we operate, for example. I will not compromise the quality of the investigation that we undertake for each complaint.
You asked why we are getting more complaints. There are a number of factors. First, I think that people are more comfortable these days about making complaints about public bodies and in general. People are used to seeing a rapid and good response from the private sector to complaints, which they expect the public sector to mirror. That culture will remain with us, which suggests that a higher level of complaints will continue in the long term.
Secondly, I think that people are more and more concerned about the impact of reduced resources, particularly in local authorities. I also think that people are more comfortable about complaining about the national health service than they used to be.
Our complaints standards authority is putting in place model complaint-handling procedures, which should mean that by the end of financial year 2012-13—that is, April 2013—every local authority in Scotland should have moved to a two-stage complaints process. That should go some way towards addressing the problem that Niki Maclean talked about, of people getting frustrated because they have to go through up to four stages to have their complaints dealt with and then come to us and have to wait a bit longer for the complaint to be looked at.
I am keen to streamline complaint handling at local authority, health service and university level, to make the process more efficient, so that even if the volume of complaints goes up we can deal with cases in a reasonable amount of time. Some of the cases that I see are about people who are concerned about the treatment that they are getting from the NHS; in such cases, every day of delay is a difficulty for them. In other cases, for example in local authorities, financial issues need to be addressed, so we are keen to deal with such cases quickly.
I think that we are adequately resourced at the moment, but if we were ever underresourced, I would go to the corporate body and say that a decision would have to be made on whether to give me the resources to maintain productivity and quality levels or accept that cases that come to me will take longer to go through.
Would you or do you accept a complaint, Mr Martin, before it goes through the organisation’s complaints process?
I have discretion to do that, but I use that discretion very sparingly. I have used it when I have thought that a member of the public has been treated unfairly and that the complaints procedure has not been applied appropriately, leading to delay.
We looked at a complaint a couple of weeks ago in which someone wanted to take a disposal-of-capital case under the auspices of the “Charging for Residential Accommodation Guidance” to a complaints review committee but was not permitted to do so by a local authority, which said that it was about to take legal action and that because that was pending the case could not go to a complaints review committee. The local authority maintained that position for 28 months. In my view, that is a misuse of power. So, I would look at such a complaint even though the complaint had not been through the complaints review committee.
If I find that someone’s complaint has been put into a complaints system and that the system is taking far too long for no good reason, then I might look at the complaint. We take cases of people who have terminal illnesses and very serious medical issues and we will fast track them. However, by and large, I would expect the body that has the jurisdiction to deal with the case to do so first.
How do you feed the learning that is obtained from consideration of individual inquiries and complaints back to public service deliverers and policy makers?
I will get Emma Gray to say a word in a minute or two about our use of a new power that Parliament gave us to publish decisions in anonymised form rather than in reports that are laid before Parliament.
Two areas need to be commended here. The national health service at Scottish level is very good at looking at what we find and going to boards to ask whether things are being done in that regard. The other body that deserves praise is the Scottish Prison Service, because whenever we raise an issue with it, the SPS immediately tackles it and tries to resolve it from the top down. That has been really reassuring and I think that people can learn from that.
Emma Gray (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman)
Good afternoon. As Jim Martin said, since last April we have been able under new powers to put into the public domain a lot more of the learning from complaints than we could previously. Since June last year, we have published around 40 short summaries of decision letters that we have produced on complaints that have reached the investigation stage in the office. That is a far greater number than we can publish of full investigation reports. Four or five investigation reports are laid before the Parliament each month. So, in addition, there are now 40 summaries a month. That puts a whole lot more material into the public domain, all of which is available on our website and is searchable, as you would expect, by body, by sector, by outcome and so on.
So, if people want to know what kind of redress they could get by taking a complaint to the ombudsman on a particular issue with a particular council or health board, they can have a look on the website and see what we have put out there. Part of that is about educating people about what the office can and cannot do, and part of it is about ensuring that bodies have information about what we will do with complaints when we receive them.
In addition, we have an outreach programme in which we engage with the public or bodies through training programmes and so on to try to improve complaints handling. We use case studies so that people learn how we look at complaints and what kind of outcomes there are for people.
Will you outline the skills of the SPSO staff? Are qualifications required to apply for the job? How does the structure work, who is employed and why do people have their particular function?
We established the first complaints-handling qualification in the UK, which is now being offered across the UK by the British and Irish Ombudsman Association. The organisations that have taken it up include the Financial Ombudsman Service, which has more than 800 staff. That progress stemmed from the SPSO’s initial work. We have a good reputation for ensuring that our staff are properly trained.
We bring in people from across our areas of jurisdiction, because we cover a wide area. We need people with health knowledge and local authority knowledge, but when we recruit staff the most important factors are core judgment and analytical skills, so all our selection processes are built around those.
That is helpful. Does Jim Martin have anything to add?
No.
I have a question about the SPSO’s preventative agenda. How do you contribute to that? You mention it in your draft report.
What do you mean by “contribute to that”?
You refer in the draft strategy document to the SPSO’s preventative agenda according with the conclusions of the Christie commission. How does the SPSO contribute to that preventative agenda?
I see that Alex Linkston, who was on the commission, is sitting at the table. We said to the Christie commission that, in our view, public bodies should look to put their best people on handling complaints, they should try to ensure that people at the front line are empowered to take decisions before issues become formal complaints and they should learn the lessons from complaints. I think that the commission took those points on board.
You suggested that they should head things off at the pass.
That is right. The National Audit Office found that in the Department for Work and Pensions, a stage 3 complaint cost 40 times more to resolve than a stage 1 complaint. Although that number might be big, I would not be at all surprised if the cost to our public bodies of letting complaints go through a big system is in that region. We can make great efficiencies and help citizens to have more confidence in public services if we empower the people at the front end to resolve issues before they become complaints.
Thank you very much for your evidence. We will consider the matter at a future date.