Local Government Ombudsman

The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) has become for many the first port of call when faced by maladministration in local government. The LGO’s job is to provide an independent means of redress to individuals suffering injustice caused by unfair treatment or service failure by local authorities. The LGO is an independent body funded by the taxpayer through an annual grant paid via the Department for Communities and Local Government. The focus of our inquiry was to consider whether the LGO is providing the service to the public which the legislation requires and the taxpayer expects.

Since the retirement of the former Chairman of the Commission in 2010 the LGO has experienced a “period of uncertainty” caused by a delay in the appointment of a permanent Chairman, the carrying out of a strategic review and, like the rest of the public sector, preparing for savings and reductions in expenditure. That period is now coming to an end with the completion of the strategic review, the appointment of a permanent Chairman in April 2012 and the announcement of budget allocations to 2014-15.

It is clear to us that the LGO now has to carry out a significant number of changes. First, it has to tackle the inefficiencies in its operations indentified by the Strategic Business Review. If these are addressed effectively, it should result in savings without affecting the quality of its services. We have, however, concerns about the implementation of the changes and have called for more detail, including timetables, from the LGO when it responds to our report. We expressed particular concern about the length of time the LGO was taking to determine some cases. An organisation, whose primary job is investigating and determining whether maladministration by others has taken place, must itself take care to avoid maladministration by delaying justice. If it does not, it will undermine its own role and credibility. We call for strict deadlines to be applied to the handling of cases by the LGO.

Second, during this period of change it is essential that the LGO keeps a close eye on the effects of the changes on those using its services and on its staff. We call for the LGO to develop and publish a methodology for measuring levels of customer satisfaction, ideally this should be developed in partnership with other Ombudsmen. Once the methodology is agreed, the LGO should carry out a survey in 2013 and triennially thereafter. We also call on the LGO to re-institute an annual, independent staff survey and publish the results.

Finally, we received a number of submissions about the LGO’s methods of handling cases.

We deliberately did not take evidence on specific cases but the extent and nature of the criticism about the quality of decisions made by the LGO and the arrangements for reviewing the LGO’s decisions was such that we call for the LGO to bring forward arrangements to ensure that there is an annual evaluation of the LGO by an external, independent reviewer, to ensure that it meets the criteria of independence, fairness, effectiveness, openness and transparency and accountability. The reviewer should be appointed by the end of this year and complete his or her work and publish the first review no later than Easter 2013.