Written evidence from Ruth Dixon and Christopher Hood,

Department of Politics and International Relations,

University of Oxford [PHS0024]

Summary

As part of our study[1] of developments in UK executive government over the past 30 years, we have collated data on complaints to ombudsmen regarding government and public services and applications for judicial review. In this paper we present the numbers of complaints and applications received and (for selected cases) the numbers and proportions that passed the first stage of the review process. Numbers of complaints have risen over the past 30 years while success rates have declined. However, the numbers should be interpreted with caution, as remits and working practices have altered over time, which may affect both the numbers of complaints and apparent success rates.

Outline of paper:

1. Number of Complaints

We report the number of complaints received by:

• Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (‘Parliamentary Ombudsman’, established 1967)[2]
• Health Service Commissioner (HSC, established 1973)[3]
• Tax Adjudicator (established 1993)
• Information Commissioner (established as Data Protection Registrar in 1984) (data protection complaints only)
• Local Government Ombudsman (established 1974)
• Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (established as Prisons Ombudsman in 1994) (prisons complaints only).

2. Number of Applications for Judicial Review
3. Success rates

We show the numbers and proportions of cases passing the first stage of the process for:

• Parliamentary Ombudsman
• Health Service Commissioner
• Judicial Review.

4. Conclusion

1. Number of Complaints

1.1   The number of complaints received by ombudsmen are shown in Figure 1. Data were obtained from the annual reports of each ombudsman.

1.2   Notes on remit and reporting changes:

1.2.1          The Parliamentary Ombudsman only investigates complaints that are sent via Members of Parliament. Until 2004-05, the number of complaints received via MPs was recorded in the annual reports. This number has not been reported since that time (although the requirement to submit complaints via MPs still applies). The post-2005 data were supplied by the office of the PHSO as a personal communication.

1.2.2          The Health Service Commissioner was established in 1973 to investigate complaints about hospital and community health services. The remit was expanded in 1996 to include complaints about general practitioners and matters of clinical judgement. Since 2002-03 only the total of ‘complaints and enquiries’ were reported for England (2003-04 in the case of Scotland). English, Scottish and Welsh health complaints were reported separately by the HSC until 1999. After devolution, the respective Public Service Ombudsmen handled health complaints in Scotland and Wales. Health complaints to the Northern Ireland Ombudsman (established 1969) are not shown.

1.2.3          The remit of the Tax Adjudicator (established 1993) expanded to include Customs & Excise and the Contributions Agency in 1996 and the Insolvency Service in 2003. The steep (and sustained) increase in complaints in the mid-2000s was attributed by the adjudicator to the introduction of tax credits.

1.2.4          The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman’s remit expanded to include the Probation Service in 2001 and asylum detention centres in 2006. Only prisons complaints are shown here.

1.2.5          In the 20011-12 Annual Report of the ICO, data protection complaints were reported as 13,034 for 2010-11 (about half the 2010-11 value in the previous year’s report) and 12,985 for 2011-12.

2. Applications for Judicial Review

2.1 Judicial review (JR) is the process whereby the courts examine the decisions of public bodies. In its present form the process in England and Wales dates from the late 1970s with significant reforms in 1998 and 2000. The procedures are somewhat different in Scotland and Northern Ireland and are handled by their respective administrative courts. The number of JR applications are shown in Figure 2. Data were obtained from annual Judicial Statistics (Judiciary of England and Wales), Civil Judicial Statistics (The Scottish Government), and Judicial Statistics (Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunal Service).

3. Success rates

3.1 Most types of complaint involve a two-stage process. Only some of the complaints made to the Parliamentary Ombudsman or the Health Commissioner proceed to a full investigation and report, and in the case of judicial review, a claimant must first be granted ‘permission to bring a claim for judicial review’ before proceeding to a final hearing. The cases that passed through the first stage of each procedure are shown in Figure 3. Our analysis does not include the outcomes of the second stage.

3.2 Success rates at the first stage depend not only on the merit of the claims, but also on the way in which complaints are handled, which has changed over the period. For instance, since 2004 the office of the Parliamentary Ombudsman has undertaken ‘investigative activity’ and ‘interventions’ for some complaints without proceeding to a full statutory investigation and report.

3.3 The Health Service Commissioner altered the method for recording complaints and investigations during the 2000s. There have also been changes to the complaints procedure, which for a period required a three-stage process involving the Healthcare Commission. We are therefore unable to report the numbers and percentages of cases passing the first stage consistently after 2002.

3.4 The proportion of cases granted permission to bring a claim for judicial review has also fallen. However, an increasing proportion of cases are settled in the pre-permission stage, often to the satisfaction of the claimant. [4]

4. Conclusion

4.1 As we showed in Section 2, complaints to ombudsmen and applications for judicial review have all increased markedly over the past three decades. The timing of the most rapid increases varied between ombudsmen.

4.2 The proportion of complaints to the PHSO and applications for JR allowed to proceed through the first stage has fallen, as shown in section 3. There have been changes to the ways in which claims are handled which could affect apparent success rates, including an increased use of more informal resolution procedures (see paragraphs 3.2 and 3.4, above).

4.3 Consistent time series of complaints about public bodies are valuable metrics. Our data collection exercise was often frustrated by changing reporting conventions. Such data breaks have been more frequent since 2000. While some breaks reflected changed working practices and led to new consistent series, in other cases reporting conventions changed from year to year making comparison impossible. In addition, some long-standing series, such as the number of complaints received by the Parliamentary Ombudsman via MPs, ceased to be publicly reported.

4.4 Such breaks and discontinuities are not only inconvenient for scholars but also have the effect of making the level of complaints far more difficult, if not impossible, to monitor by outside bodies (including the Public Administration Select Committee itself).

July 2013

              Ruth Dixon and Christopher Hood 2013

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