How are you investigating more complaints

The request was partially successful.

Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,

Please can you answer the following:

1. It is not possible to conduct 6 to 10 times more 'investigations' with exactly the same amount of staffing resource. How do you achieve this?

2. Is the reality that these new style 'investigations' will be less robust than previous investigations?

3. It has been noted that the Ombudsman is now using the term 'consider' complaints. Is this terminology going to be changed on the website? Does this reflect a change in approach?

3. Given that the complaints you receive will not be significantly different from those made in previous years, does this mean that you have now changed the criteria for accepting complaints for investigation?

4. If you have changed the threshold for deciding to investigate how would you counter-act claims that you have discriminated against those whose complaints have previously not been investigated? Do you think this is fair?

I am solely interested in PHSO policy/ strategy and therefore do not expect you to trawl through numerous records. However if you consider it will still take you over £450 to provide these answers then please can you use this amount to answer as many of my questions as possible and I will submit the rest as a separate FOI.

Many thanks for your cooperation.

Yours faithfully,

Mary Rains

foiofficer, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Thank you for your e-mail to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman. This return e-mail shows that we have received your
correspondence.

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Della left an annotation ()

Good questions Mary Rains. More for less is a very neat trick.

E. Colville left an annotation ()

Pointed questions that need answering. Thank you Mary Rains.

It may interest you to know that on 4th April I raised with the Public Administration Select Committee the following points which relate to part (3) of your request:

"Yesterday I made troubling discoveries about the PHSO governance framework. Please see:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/n...

Is PASC aware? Does it have a view on what can reasonably be described as a steady erosion of PHSO responsibilities (to investigate) which simply does not stack up against Dame Julie's further written submission published on 25 February 2014?
(http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidenc...).

Does PASC have any intention to influence the Statement of Responsibility which is due to be up-dated?"

I await PASC's response.

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

It's rather difficult to see how investigations could be 'less robust'.

They are extremely flimsy at present.

foiofficer, Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Ms Mary Rains

By email only

 

FDN-188577

 

 

12 May 2014

 

 

Dear Ms Rains

 

RE: Freedom of Information request - How are you investigating more
complaints

 

I write in response to your email of 9 April 2014 in which you request
information in the following terms:

 

1.       It is not possible to conduct 6 to 10 times more 'investigations'
with exactly the same amount of staffing resource.  How do you achieve
this? 

2.       Is the reality that these new style 'investigations' will be less
robust than previous investigations?

3.       It has been noted that the Ombudsman is now using the term
'consider' complaints. Is this terminology going to be changed on the
website? Does this reflect a change in approach?

4.       Given that the complaints you receive will not be significantly
different from those made in previous years, does this mean that you have
now changed the criteria for accepting complaints for investigation?

5.       If you have changed the threshold for deciding to investigate how
would you counter-act claims that you have discriminated against those
whose complaints have previously not been investigated?  Do you think this
is fair?

 

First I should say that that I have not considered your questions under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Freedom of Information Act only
provides a right of access to recorded information held by public bodies.
However, given your interest in our office and to be helpful, I have tried
to answer your questions.

 

As you have recognised, the Office of the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman (PHSO) is now carrying out a great deal more investigations
while the staffing resources have not changed significantly. This is
because what has changed significantly is the deployment of these staff.
Since April 2013, PHSO has actively redeployed staff from duties involving
assessments of complaints to duties involving investigations of
complaints. 

 

When conducting our assessments and investigations, we currently and have
historically applied the intent of the Ombudsman legislation. That is, we
take on cases for investigation where there are indications of injustice,
maladministration or service failure. You can read more about the detailed
work that we carried out when we assessed cases in our annual reports
here: [1]http://www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/pub...

 

In order to facilitate the change in our approach, we changed our
threshold of assessments to investigate complaints. Historically we set
quite a high bar and approach was to not investigate a complaint unless
evidence showed the complaint was likely to be upheld.  Because we wanted
to be able to investigate more cases for more people we now start an
investigation where there is an indication of injustice in consequence of
maladministration or service failure unless there is a good reason not to.

 

I hope you find this clarification helpful.

 

Yours sincerely

 

David Thomas

FOI/Data Protection Officer

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

E: [2][email address]

W: [3]www.ombudsman.org.uk

 

 

 

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J Roberts left an annotation ()

Ms Rains,

In your request you mentioned that you would consider resubmitting part of your request if it was over the cost threshold. I do not know much about the FoI Act, but I thought I would alert you to something. I was recently torpedoed under some clause that allows an authority to "amalgamate" related requests over a 60 day period for cost purposes.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...

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

Did this 'amalgamation' of requests use the 'Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon' rules Mary?

Or was negotiation of the Seven Circles of Hell involved?

Della left an annotation ()

The answer to this request might shed some light on your question Mary. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/q...

Quick investigations, carried out by assessors but re-branded as 'investigations'seems to be one way of delivering more for less.