Written evidence from Della Reynolds (PHO 04)
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Scrutiny 2020-21 inquiry
Summary:
Evidence shows that despite significant and increasing public concern about the work of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, this body remains accountable only to itself.
• In theory the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) is accountable to parliament via the work of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC)
• According to the PACAC website:
PACAC receives a high volume of queries in relation to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)
• PACAC responds to these queries (complaints?) by passing them back to the Ombudsman without investigation.
The Committee cannot review the PHSO's adjudications on individual cases. This includes the PHSO's decisions on whether or not to accept a case. As the office of the PHSO is independent, adjudications cannot be overruled by a government minister or any parliamentary committee.
If you are not happy with a PHSO decision, you can ask the PHSO to review that decision.
• When the public fail to get a satisfactory response from a PHSO review, PACAC suggest that they take the matter to court and rely upon ‘The Citizen Advice Bureau’ for assistance.
If you have asked the PHSO to review its decision in your case and you are not satisfied with the outcome of that review, the only option for further review is through the courts. Judicial Review is not an appeal of a decision with which you disagree. It is instead a challenge at Court that the way in which the decision was made was unlawful. You should also note that the Court cannot order the Ombudsman to investigate a complaint (see Re Fletcher's Application [1970] 2 All ER 527). They can only order that the Ombudsman take the decision again. If you wish to take this route, you may find the Citizens Advice website useful.
• The Citizen Advice Bureau is a charitable organisation with limited funds and limited expertise. It soon becomes apparent to any citizen who takes this route that they will quickly be overwhelmed by the herculean task of fighting a publicly funded legal team with the resources of the local CAB volunteer.
• When citizens seek further support from PACAC they are told to complain to the body who has previously failed them.
It is also possible to complain directly to the PHSO about the way in which it handled your case.
• It can be seen that there is no accountability to the public via PACAC.
• From a recent FOI response from the National Audit Office we learn that they also receive a large number of queries from the public with concerns regarding the data published in the PHSO reports.
• https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/768669/response/1848551/attach/html/10/02.Email%2026.11.2021%20Redacted.pdf.html (July 2021)
S.40(2) has asked me to raise the correspondence point within our section on external audit. The observation we made was that the NAO continues to receive a large volume of correspondence from members of the public on the data on the outcome of enquiries and complaints the PHSO reports
within the front half of the annual report and accounts.
• Their response is to pass these concerns back to PHSO themselves.
This is not data that is covered by the C&AG’s audit opinion, we only audit the sections marked as subject to audit and review
consistency with the financial statements, and of course the C&AG does not have the VFM access rights. In most cases our response to the correspondents is thus to say it falls outside of the remit of the NAO.
• The large volume of public correspondence has raised concerns with the NAO as to whether there are robust methods to verify the data reported by PHSO in their annual reports.
We reflected that it would be useful to understand how management and
the ARAC assures itself over the mechanisms in place to verify what is
reported and how these mechanisms are kept under review and robustly tested.
• The genuine concerns of the NAO with regard to robust methods of verification are just dismissed by Amanda Amroliwala CEO at PHSO.
Thank you for the heads-up on the two issues. On the issue of correspondence, I am happy to deal with this if you raise it in the NAO section. A very short summary, as alluded to in the Information Assurance item, is that there are a small number of individuals
who actively campaign against PHSO. These are all people who have
previously brought complaints to us and have not got the outcome
that they want. The individuals write, often in a coordinated way,
to yourselves, Parliament, the ICO, Trustpilot, MPs etc.
Our scrutiny hearing on Monday examined a number of the same issues sent to you.
• The suggestion that a small group of people are carrying out some kind of vendetta against the Ombudsman simply because they didn’t get the outcome they wanted is used by PHSO to dismiss criticism and there is no evidential support for this claim. Sir Liam Donaldson, in a 2018 external review of PHSO, warned that “the ‘internal’ world of PHSO where caseworkers remained convinced of the validity of their actions, clashed with the ‘external’ world where those actions were held to be perverse and illogical to the point of illegality”. After interviewing complainants and reading a number of written testimonials he concluded that;
It would be wrong to simply note the critical comments and conclude that they were an unrepresentative minority. The sources of information on complainants’ experience provide rich and important insights into the functioning of the PHSO service. It was particularly striking that the group of complainants, with whom I, and the Clinical Advice Review Team, met, was not made up of vexatious or unreasonable people. They expressed frustration and, anger, but the problems that they described with the handling of their complaints should be a vital source of learning. Many of their criticisms of the PHSO’s processes, and those in the documented accounts and submissions, were consistent with what I had already observed, having read a sample of records provided to me. PHSO Clinical Advice Review (p13)
• Amanda Amroliwala assures the NAO that PHSO management is accountable to their Board, and this presumably serves as a mechanism to robustly review and test the data released by PHSO.
We also have accountability to our Board, to whom we have recently written a detailed response concerning the latest
challenges to our performance figures.
• She then continues to disparage the citizens who have taken the time to raise their concerns with regard to the performance of the Ombudsman.
Given the nature of these individuals and the personal agendas that drive their questioning, we must be careful not to allow them to consume even more time and resource than they currently do,
whilst at the same time remaining accountable for any genuine concerns that they raise.
• By defining concerned citizens as vindictive trouble-makers PHSO are effectively making themselves blind it any ‘genuine concerns’ that are raised. Yet Ms Amroliwala is confident that there are mechanisms in place to address these concerns and ensure public confidence.
I am confident that mechanisms exist, including through our Board and
Parliament, to enable us to manage this.
• Parliament, via PACAC has shown itself to be ineffectual at holding the Ombudsman to account and ensuring public confidence. What of the Board, the other mechanism relied upon by PHSO management?
• In theory the board should be able to hold the ombudsman to account and maintain public confidence, as the board is directly accountable to the public. These extracts are from an application to join the PHSO board of governors.
Commitment to the seven principles of public life:
Accountable to the public:
Able to inspire the confidence of complainants and the public:
Able to hold the executive team to account:
• The reality is that the board refuse to respond to public concerns. This extract from PHSO correspondence demonstrates the way in which concerns are brushed aside and all criticism is seen as, to quote PHSO, ‘unreasonable behaviour’. https://phsothetruestory.com/2021/06/25/who-do-you-think-you-are-kidding-mister-behrens/
We will not therefore be providing a response to the points that have been raised in your letter but can say that Miss Farrant nor I have seen any issues of concern with regard to matters raised. Furthermore, we do not accept your views that our not responding amounts to an acceptance of your allegations or a failure in the governance of PHSO.
Conclusion:
• Has PACAC been given access to the detailed response concerning the latest challenges to PHSO performance. which was presented to the board in November 2020, as stated by Amanda Amroliwala in her correspondence with the NAO?
We also have accountability to our Board, to whom we have recently written a detailed response concerning the latest
challenges to our performance figures.
If not then the committee should request to see this correspondence as part of the annual scrutiny session and publish it on their website.
• Have the PHSO board made this detailed response available to the public? If not, then who holds the board members to account when they fail to meet the terms of their contract?
• If this correspondence between the Board and the Executive is not published then the Board does not act as a robust mechanism to ensure accountability and the Board has failed in its responsibility to inspire confidence in the public.
• The use of the word ‘transparent’ on the PHSO website is in breach of the trade descriptions act.
October 2021