Thank you for contacting the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s
(PHSO) Freedom of Information and Data Protection Team. This is to confirm
we have received your request. If you have made a request for information
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or Environment Information
Regulations 2004, we aim to respond to your request within 20 working days
in accordance with the statutory time frames set out in both Acts. If you
have made a request for personal information held by the PHSO, your
request will be processed as a Subject Access Request under the provisions
of the Data Protection Act 2018 and we aim to respond within one calendar
month in accordance with the statutory time frame set out in the Act. We
may contact you before this time if we require further clarification or if
we need to extend the time required to complete your request.

Please note that we are currently experiencing a high demand, and might
not be able to comply with the statutory deadline for your request. Any
late responses can be referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

https://ico.org.uk/

For Subject Access Requests, we will send any personal information via
secure email, unless you instruct us differently. To access the
information on the email we send, you will need to sign up to our secure
email service. Details can be found on our website using the link below:
https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/co...
If you require us to post your personal information to you instead you
will need to inform us of this and confirm your current address as soon as
possible. Angharad Jackson Data Protection Officer & Assistant Director
Information Assurance Office of the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman PHSO CityGate 47-51 Mosley Street Manchester M2 3HQ
[email address]

Dear Dudley Jones

Thank you for your request of 25 May 2022. in which you requested
information from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Your
request has been handled in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act
2000.

Your request:

“In the last 2 years, how many times has the PHSO Ombudsman investigated a
very serious complaint about the Treasury Solicitor, Susanna McGibbon?

Of those investigations, how many have been assigned to [detail redacted],
a caseworker who is not a senior caseworker?

Of those investigations conducted by [detail redacted], how many times has
[detail redacted] failed to observe the following 5 Principles described
below on the PHSO website as the ‘PHSO Principles of Good Complaint
Handling’? (I was referred to these Principles by [detail redacted]’s
Operations Manager, [detail redacted])

1) She failed to contact me to tell me she had been assigned to
investigate my complaint. I only learnt from another PHSO official that
[detail redacted] was to be my case investigator

2) She did not check to see how I would ‘like to be updated during the
investigation’. In fact, she made no contact with me at all during her
investigation.

3) She did not explain what she ‘would be investigating’, resulting in an
appallingly incompetent Report. Had she done so, I would have pointed out
that my complaint was not about the GLD as she falsely stated at the
beginning of her Report

4) At the end of the 1st stage of her “investigation”, I was not told by
[detail redacted] ‘how the PHSO planned to investigate my complaint’ and

5) I did not know how long the PHSO ‘expected things to take’, and, of
course, I was never at any stage ‘updated about the progress of her
investigation’.

How many times has [detail redacted] conducted an investigation and
produced a Report in which she failed to correctly identify who the
complaint had been made about?

[She never refers in any detail to the behaviour of the Treasury Solicitor
who my complaint was about. She states that my complaint was about the GLD
despite the fact that my complaint begins ‘I would like to complain about
the Treasury Solicitor’]

How many times has [detail redacted] produced a Report which completely
ignores the 2 most important pieces of evidence identified by the
Complainant in his Complaint Statement? (see ‘Background Statement’ below)

How many times has Operations Manager [detail redacted] reviewed and
completely endorsed a Report and Decision in which [detail redacted] fails
to identify the subject of the complaint, fails to address the 2 major
pieces of evidence in the Complainant’s Statement, and dismisses the
Complaint, saying that the subject of the complaint has no case to answer?

How many times has Rob Behrens completely endorsed a Report and Decision
by [detail redacted] in which she fails to identify the subject of a
Complaint, and ignores the 2 most important pieces of evidence submitted
by the Complainant?

How many times in the last 2 years has Rob Behrens ignored a plea from a
complainant to intervene in what is a patently flawed decision?

How many complaints about the PHSO’s ‘bias’ and ‘incompetence’ have there
been in the last 2 years?

Background Statement

The 2 most important pieces of evidence referred to above were:

1) a letter to Theresa May, MP, in which the Treasury Solicitor usurped
the role of Rob Behrens, the Ombudsman, dismissed the complaint about her
which I thought May had forwarded to the PHSO, and said it was up to May
whether she decided to forward her reply to the Ombudsman and

2) the published GLD Complaints Policy and Procedures which made it quite
clear that the Treasury Solicitor should have recused herself and not
reviewed my complaint about her Director of Litigation who she publicly
tweeted was her ‘friend’ and ‘role model’.

My Complaint about the Treasury Solicitor had to be forwarded to the
Ombudsman by my local MP, Theresa May. Mrs May – either extraordinarily
confused or CORRUPT – decided to send it to the Cabinet Office (the CO has
a close relationship with the PHSO) who organised a conspiracy with the
Attorney General’s Office and the GLD to protect the Treasury Solicitor.
After a flurry of furtive emails between the CO, AGO, and GLD as to how
they could possibly legitimise sending my Complaint (which begins ‘Dear
Parliamentary Commissioner.. I wish to complain about the Treasury
Solicitor) to the Treasury Solicitor because she would know what to do
with it. She did know what to do with it: she usurped the role of Rob
Behrens, wrote a reply to Mrs May dismissing my complaint. I have, of
course, the relevant emails that prove everything I have said above (and
below) is TRUE.

This was a clear attempt on McGibbon’s part to pervert the course of
justice. Rob Behrens’ endorsement of [detail redacted]s dismissal of my
complaint ensured the Treasury Solicitor’s attempt to pervert the course
of justice was successful.

Shortly after [detail redacted]s Report and Decision, the Cabinet Office
confirmed they had extended Rob Behrens’ period of office as the PHSO
Ombudsman for a further 4 years. No doubt they were gratified by all the
fine work he had done.

NB A postscript on the PHSO’s ‘performance’: in 2018-19, official PHSO
figures revealed that of 5.744 Parliamentary complaints only 38 were
‘upheld’. That’s a 0.6% ‘upheld rate. Need I say more?”

Our response:

PHSO is refusing this request as vexatious under section 14(1) Freedom of
Information Act 2000. PHSO will not respond to any further vexatious
requests on this or similar topics.

We have made this decision taking into account the guidance issued by the
information commissioner and considering the Decision of the Upper
Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber in the case of [1]Information
Commissioner vs Devon County Council & Dransfield [2012]

The information commissioner provides indicators to consider when
attempting to identify potentially vexatious requests.

These include requests which involve the requester targeting their
correspondence towards a particular employee or office holder against whom
they have some personal enmity questioning their decision making. This
request is clearly targeted at the decisions made by the caseworker who
dealt with their case.

Another indication would be the unreasonable burden placed on the public
authority. Several of the requests would involve the manual inspection of
individual case reports which would take a considerable amount of time. In
addition, the request asks about failures of 5 principles, this request
would be subjective and therefore the requester would possibly disagree
with the response provided if one could in fact be provided.

The request contains several unfounded accusations for example the use of
the words “FAILURE” “BIAS” “INCOMPENTENCE” “PATENTLY FLAWED DECISION”
“IGNORED”.

The ICO guidance also quotes Upper tribunal

“The emphasis on protecting public authorities’ resources from
unreasonable requests was acknowledged by the Upper Tribunal in the case
of Information Commissioner vs Devon County Council & Dransfield [2012]
UKUT 440 (AAC), (28 January 2013) when it defined the purpose of section
14 as follows;

‘Section 14…is concerned with the nature of the request and has the effect
of disapplying the citizen’s right under Section 1(1)…The purpose of
Section 14…must be to protect the resources (in the broadest sense of that
word) of the public authority from being squandered on disproportionate
use of FOIA…’ (paragraph 10).

We have concluded that this request would constitute a disproportionate
use of the freedom of Information Act 2000.

If you believe we have made an error in the way we have processed your
information request, it is open to you to request an internal review. You
can do this by writing to us by post or by email to
[2][PHSO request email]. You will need to specify what the
nature of the issue is and we can consider the matter further. Beyond
that, it is open to you to complain to the Information Commissioner’s
Office ([3]www.ico.org.uk).

Yours sincerely

Angharad Jackson

Data Protection Officer

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

PHSO CityGate

47-51 Mosley Street

Manchester

M2 3HQ

E: [4][email address]

W: [5]www.ombudsman.org.uk

For information rights enquiries, please contact
[6][PHSO request email]

Want to know more about your information rights? Read our [7]privacy
notice

References

Visible links
1. Information Commissioner vs Devon County Council & Dransfield
https://administrativeappeals.decisions....
2. mailto:[PHSO request email]
3. http://www.ico.org.uk/
4. mailto:[email address]
5. http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/
6. mailto:[PHSO request email]
7. https://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/co...