Cost breakdown of "other activities and outputs"

The request was partially successful.

Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,

In his memorandum of 20 January 2000 to PASC the Ombudsman wrote:

"(c) Apart from screening and investigation cases and dealing with enquiries the Office has other significant activities and outputs. They include those in support of the Ombudsman's strategic aim to promote improvements in services and increase awareness of the Office. This covers, for example, the representational duties that the Ombudsman and his senior staff undertake, and the work of the Office in working with organisations to improve their practices, the production of volumes of selected investigations, and the spreading of advice and good practice through a range of initiatives."

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa...

To the extent permissible under the cost limitations imposed by the FOI Act I request disclosure of the annual costs since 2005 to 2014/15 (or latest available information) associated with the "other significant activities and outputs" of the Office. A breakdown by relevant activity and output for each year should be provided.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

E. Colville

foiofficer@ombudsman.org.uk, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman


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foiofficer, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Dear Ms Colville

 

Your information request (FDN-243657)

 

I am writing further to your request of 19 December 2015, in which you
requested information about the annual costs associated with the "other
significant activities and outputs" of PHSO since 2005. You have also
asked that this information be broken down by the relevant activity and
output for each year.

 

I have considered your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000
and can confirm that we hold the information you have asked for. However,
for the reasons I will go on to explain, we cannot disclose all of that
information to you.  

 

For the purposes of this request the "other significant activities and
outputs" of PHSO could include all of our work except for “screening and
investigation cases, and dealing with enquiries”. Therefore I am unable to
provide you with the information you have requested because it would take
as it would take a significant amount of time to extract it from our
records. We do not record whether or not any of our activities and
spending falls under "other significant activities and outputs" or an
equivalent category. Providing you with this information as this would
require us to review all of our activities and spending over the relevant
period. Because this would exceed the appropriate cost limit set out in
section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000, we are unable to
provide you with this information.

 

Section 12 states that where the cost of compliance exceeds the
appropriate limit a public authority is not obliged to provide the
information requested. As we do not record "other significant activities
and outputs", it would not be possible to provide you with this
information without exceeding the appropriate cost limit set out in
section 12 of the FOIA 2000 and in the Freedom of Information and Data
Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. In this case the
appropriate limit for PHSO is £450, or the equivalent of 18 hours of work.

 

However, information relating to our activities and spending generally are
set out in our annual reports and resource accounts. These are available
on PHSO’s website at
[1]www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/publications/annual-reports. Please note
that information relating to our spending was reported separately in our
resource accounts up until 2012-13 and that this information is now
included within our annual report.

 

Also, the information on PHSO’s website only includes information relating
to our spending as far back as the resource accounts for 2011-12. We do
hold the resource accounts dating back to 2005, but unfortunately we are
experiencing problems with our systems and are currently unable to access
this information.  I will provide these to you when the problem is fixed.

 

I hope the information I have provided is helpful. If you have any further
queries, or would like to ask for a review of my decision, you can do so
by writing to [2][email address]. 

 

If you still have concerns after that, you can ask the Information
Commissioner’s Office to look into your case. Their contact details are
available on their website at: [3]www.ico.org.uk.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Freedom of Information/Data Protection Officer

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

 

References

Visible links
1. http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/pub...
2. mailto:[email address]
3. http://www.ico.org.uk/

D. Speers left an annotation ()

Truly appalling state of affairs " A breakdown by relevant activity and output for each year should always be provided".

[Name Removed] (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

Yet more questionmarks over the way in which the PHSO accounts are managed.

It seems that Sir Amyas C E Morse will continue to be disappointed.

PHSO Annual report page 94

'It is important these encompass improvements in the quality and skills of the finance staff, improve financial reporting to enable the Board to have sufficient oversight of financial performance and that greater attention is paid to the review process to ensure the presentation of accurate financial data and adequate resource bids. The planned actions being taken by PHSO include these areas, and are referenced in the Governance Statement.
I will review the PHSO’s progress in addressing these weaknesses in financial reporting and financial management in my future audits' .

Sir Amyas C E Morse
Comptroller and Auditor General 28 October 2015
National Audit Office
157-197 Buckingham Palace Road Victoria
London
SW1W 9SP

foiofficer, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

6 Attachments

Dear Ms Colville

 

Follow-up to your information request (FDN-243657)

 

Further to my response of 20 January December 2015, please see the
attached the resource accounts for 2005-2006 to 2010-11.

 

 

I hope the information I have provided is helpful. If you have any further
queries, or would like to ask for a review of my decision, you can do so
by writing to [1][email address]. 

 

If you still have concerns after that, you can ask the Information
Commissioner’s Office to look into your case. Their contact details are
available on their website at: [2]www.ico.org.uk.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Freedom of Information/Data Protection Officer

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. http://www.ico.org.uk/