MPs call on Local Government Ombudsman to "raise its game"

MPs have called on the Local Government Ombudsman to “raise its game significantly”, including by applying strict deadlines to all the cases that it handles.

In a report, the Communities and Local Government Committee claimed that the LGO was taking “far too long” to determine some cases, and that this could raise questions about its authority and credibility.

The MPs said the Ombudsman should put in place arrangements for an annual evaluation of its activities by an independent external reviewer. This reviewer should be appointed by the end of the year and produce their first report by Easter 2013 at the latest, the report added.

The CLG committee also recommended that the Ombudsman must in future “be completely clear with all parties about the criteria it applies in order to determine whether cases are assigned to be resolved through a mediated process to achieve redress, or are allocated for full investigation and formal determination”.

The report added that the LGO should be transparent about the procedures that apply when any case is moved from one process to another.

Management at the Ombudsman were criticised for not publishing its 2011 Strategic Business Review in full, with the MPs describing the reasons given for that decision as “unconvincing” and suggesting it might be evidence of insufficient appetite for change.

The report said the LGO should explain which parts of the review it will implement in full and in part, and set out a timetable in its response to the committee’s report.

The CLG committee meanwhile called on the Government to:

• explain how it will monitor the implementation of the recent reorganisation at the LGO.
• urgently update the governance agreement – known as the “Grant Memorandum” – that it has with the Ombudsman “so that the organisation can have a clear and comprehensive understanding of its relationship with, and responsibilities to, the Department for Communities and Local Government”.

CLG committee chair Clive Betts said: "First and foremost, the LGO must implement the changes identified by the recent Strategic Business Review, so that it can live within its means while providing the service to the public that is required by the legislation and expected by taxpayer.”

A copy of the report can be downloaded here. 

Responding to the CLG committee report, Jane Martin, Ombudsman, said the LGO recognised that some changes needed to be made to the organisation in order to modernise the service and cope with a budget that will be reduced by a third over the next few years.

She also pointed to the LGO’s recently published annual report for 2011/12, which showed that its investigative teams decided 11,229 complaints over the year – up 4%.

Martin said: “In more than a quarter of these cases, we identified significant injustice and obtained redress for the complainants concerned, many of whom were vulnerable individuals whose voice would have otherwise gone unheard. We are acutely aware that this is an essential frontline service and welcome the scrutiny of the Committee to make sure that we are delivering it as efficiently as possible without compromising on quality.”

The Ombudsman added that many of the CLG committee’s recommendations had already been taken on board.

The LGO also insisted that cases where a complaint could not be resolved within 52 weeks were rare (0.5% of cases) and that this was usually due to the complexity of the issues involved or the need to accommodate other organisations’ processes. However, the organisation is reviewing each individual case in this category.

Philip Hoult