New evidence
Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,
I realise that you have a large number of outstanding FOI requests and apologise in advance for adding to this load. If PHSO ever answered direct letters then perhaps you would have fewer requests made in the public domain. Just a thought.
I believe that Dame Julie Mellor stated recently that if new evidence became available, the Ombudsman would re-open a case for further review.
Can you confirm that this is the case?
Can you inform me how to present new evidence?
Can you inform me how to make a complaint following review of a case?
I am sure that many people would be interested in this information. I look forward to your response.
Yours faithfully,
D. Reynolds.
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Dear Ms Reynolds
Thank you for your email of 8 October 2013.
You said:
‘I believe that Dame Julie Mellor stated recently that if new evidence
became available, the Ombudsman would re-open a case for further review.
Can you confirm that this is the case?
Can you inform me how to present new evidence?
Can you inform me how to make a complaint following review of a case?’
As you may know, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides a right of
access to recorded information held by public bodies. It does not provide
a right to opinions or advice where it is not already recorded. Nor is the
public body required to create information where it is not held.
Though the Freedom of Information Act 2000 does not apply to your requests
for clarification and advice, I will try to assist you.
PHSO's review process is the final stage of their complaints procedure.
When we issue a review response, we tell the customer that we will
consider future correspondence from them, but we will only respond if we
believe it raises something new.
If a customer submits new evidence to us post-review, we will make a
judgement about whether the evidence is new and requires fresh action. If
we decide that it is, we will contact the customer to explain what we are
going to do.
If a customer has new evidence that they want us to consider, they should
put it to us in writing explaining to us the relevance of the information.
They can do so by emailing us at [1][email address] or writing
to us at the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Office, Millbank
Tower, Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP.
If a customer believes that our review decision was wrong, and wishes to
complain, they would need to put that complaint to us in writing. We will
make a judgement on whether a further response is required.
I hope this information is helpful to you.
Yours sincerely
Luke Whiting
Head of Freedom of Information and Data Protection
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Dear Luke Whiting,
Thank you for responding to my FOI request even though it wasn't strictly within the guidelines. Can I suggest that if PHSO replied to direct letters, it may well be the case that fewer public FOI requests would be made.
It would appear that PHSO 'make a judgement' on whether evidence is new, relevant or requires fresh action. It would appear that in most cases PHSO decide that it does not meet any of these requirements and therefore do not respond to the complainant in any way. In other words the correspondence is ignored.
The same appears to be true for a complaint about a review. The vast majority, if not all, are ignored.
I wonder if you can confirm this state of affairs by supplying me with the following data.
2011 - 2012 The number of times a complainant has asked for a reconsideration of a review with new evidence supplied and without new evidence supplied.
2011 - 2012 The number of times PHSO has responded to the request for a reconsideration of a review when new evidence has been presented and when no new evidence has been presented.
2011 - 2012 The number of times a request to reconsider a review has led to a new inquiry/investigation.
2011 - 2012 The number of people who have made a complaint following a review.
2011 - 2012 The number of times that complaint has been responded to by PHSO.
I have asked for 2011 - 2012 as that gives access to a full years data but I would also be interested in information you have on this matter for 2012 - 2013.
I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
D. Reynolds.
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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Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
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Dear Della
Your information request (FDN-177698)
I write further to your email of 6 November 2013 in which you ask:
‘2011 - 2012 The number of times a complainant has asked for a reconsideration of a review with new evidence supplied and without new evidence supplied.
2011 - 2012 The number of times PHSO has responded to the request for a reconsideration of a review when new evidence has been presented and when no new evidence has been presented.
2011 - 2012 The number of times a request to reconsider a review has led to a new inquiry/investigation.
2011 - 2012 The number of people who have made a complaint following a review.
2011 - 2012 The number of times that complaint has been responded to by PHSO.
I have asked for 2011 - 2012 as that gives access to a full years data but I would also be interested in information you have on this matter for 2012 - 2013.’
I am unable to provide you with the information you have requested. We do not centrally record this information through our case management system. Therefore to extract the information you require I would have to manually go through every case which we reviewed in 2011-2012. In 2011-2012 we carried out 1,159 reviews. To manually go through these cases to extract the information you have requested would far exceed the time and cost limit. The “appropriate limit” is specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. In relation to this Office, the appropriate cost limit is 18 hours or £450 at £25 per hour. If the appropriate cost limit is exceeded, the information requested is exempt from release under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act.
I hope my explanation has been helpful. However, you can request an internal review of my application of section 12 if you are unhappy with my response by writing to the Review Team at: [email address]
If you remain dissatisfied, it is then open to you to approach the Information Commissioner’s Office. Their contact details can be found on their website at: www.ico.org.uk
Yours sincerely
Claire Helm
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Officer
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
E: [Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman request email]
W: www.ombudsman.org.uk
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Dear Claire Helm,
I am very surprised that PHSO doesn't record the number of cases re-reviewed due to the presentation of new evidence. With such comprehensive records of PHSO achievement making up the annual report I would imagine that PHSO would want to include how responsive they are as an organisation. This data would demonstrate that perfectly.
In an attempt to get some idea of the success of this process, before submitting new evidence myself, perhaps you will be able to provide some information if we reduce the criteria for search.
Can you tell me, in the last year, how many people have submitted new evidence following the closure of their case after review and how many of those cases were then reviewed again by an assessor and what was the outcome of those cases?
If it will take too long to scan through a whole year then please reduce the time to the last 6 months or whatever time scale will fit your financial constrictions. I am sure that a large number of people would like to know whether submitting new evidence is worthwhile or just another waste of time.
Many thanks.
D. Reynolds.
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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Dear Claire Helm,
I wonder if you would be able to respond to my request of 6th December now that the holiday period has come to an end. I am very keen to learn if submitting new evidence is likely to have any worthwhile outcome.
Yours sincerely,
D. Reynolds
Thank you for your e-mail to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman. This return e-mail shows that we have received your
correspondence.
All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure
Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
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Dear Della
Your information request (FDN-179872)
I write in response to your email of 6 December 2013. In your email you write, ‘In an attempt to get some idea of the success of this process, before submitting new evidence myself, perhaps you will be able to provide some information if we reduce the criteria for search.
Can you tell me, in the last year, how many people have submitted new evidence following the closure of their case after review and how many of those cases were then reviewed again by an assessor and what was the outcome of those cases?
If it will take too long to scan through a whole year then please reduce the time to the last 6 months or whatever time scale will fit your financial constrictions. I am sure that a large number of people would like to know whether submitting new evidence is worthwhile or just another waste of time.’
First I thought you might find some further explanation about the review and post review process helpful. As you are aware, a review of a complaint is the process in which we reconsider the case to see if there were any errors in our decision or flaws in our handling. Information about the outcome of reviews can be found in our Annual Reports on our website: www.ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/publicatio...
Submitting new evidence after a review (at what we call ‘post review’ stage) is not the same as challenging the validity of the decision (which is what someone does when they request a review after the initial decision has been made). This is because any decision can only be made in light of the evidence that is available to us at the time. Either way, if we decided that the new evidence would need in-depth consideration to see if it alters the outcome of the complaint we may need to send the complaint for a fresh consideration and we would usually treat it as a new complaint.
As you know, after a review is closed we explain to people that although we will look at further correspondence from them we will only respond if we consider new matters have been raised. When a complainant claims to send us new evidence we will look at what they have sent us to determine if it is actually new. Often people will resubmit papers they have already sent us or that we have already seen. However, if there genuinely is new evidence we would then need to decide whether the new evidence is material. In other words, whether it discloses anything which impacts on our original decision in a case.
I hope this clarification has been useful.
Now I turn to your information request. I have identified the cases where we received ‘post review’ correspondence in the 2012-13 business year. I have been unable to look into six months of review cases as this still exceeds the cost limit as set out in section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, I have looked at three months within the time frame. Of the 379 times we received post review correspondence on cases in April-June in 2012, five complainants claim to have had new evidence. In none of these cases was the case passed for a new assessment or ‘re-opened’ and passed back to the caseworker. In these cases we found that either the purportedly ‘new’ evidence was not in fact new evidence (i.e. we had already seen it), or that the new evidence did not disclose anything material which impacted on our original decision.
If you feel you have new evidence which we were not able to consider during our original consideration of your complaint then it would be open to you to provide us with this information. However, as you are aware, we will not respond substantively unless we feel the new evidence disclosed means your complaint needs to be looked at again.
Yours sincerely
Claire Helm
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Officer
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
E: [email address]
W: www.ombudsman.org.uk
All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for legal purposes.
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Dear Claire,
So the short answer is none. In the three month period you reviewed no cases were reconsidered due to 'post review' correspondence or the submission of new evidence. Can you confirm that this statement is correct?
Yours sincerely,
Della Reynolds.
Thank you for your e-mail to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman. This return e-mail shows that we have received your
correspondence.
All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure
Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
The MessageLabs Anti Virus Service is the first managed service to achieve
the CSIA Claims Tested Mark (CCTM Certificate Number 2006/04/0007), the UK
Government quality mark initiative for information security products and
services. For more information about this please visit www.cctmark.gov.uk
Dear Claire,
Can you please confirm that none of the 379 people who took the time to present 'post review correspondence' including the 5 who submitted new evidence were able to obtain a new review of their case? Clearly these people felt strongly that something was amiss with the original assessment and review. Yet these figures would suggest that phso have a 100% accuracy rate in relation to decision making. Can you confirm that this is what you are saying?
Yours sincerely,
Della Reynolds.
Thank you for your e-mail to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman. This return e-mail shows that we have received your
correspondence.
All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure
Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
The MessageLabs Anti Virus Service is the first managed service to achieve
the CSIA Claims Tested Mark (CCTM Certificate Number 2006/04/0007), the UK
Government quality mark initiative for information security products and
services. For more information about this please visit www.cctmark.gov.uk
Dear Claire Helm,
As you have not been able to confirm the data given above we must draw our own conclusions. The obvious one is that making a post-review complaint is a waste of time and you will not even receive a reply to your well crafted argument and submission of new evidence. This is because PHSO have built into this process a double protection of subjective analysis. Quote:
"As you know, after a review is closed we explain to people that although we will look at further correspondence from them we will only respond if we consider new matters have been raised. When a complainant claims to send us new evidence we will look at what they have sent us to determine if it is actually new. Often people will resubmit papers they have already sent us or that we have already seen. However, if there genuinely is new evidence we would then need to decide whether the new evidence is material. In other words, whether it discloses anything which impacts on our original decision in a case."
So PHSO decide whether it is 'new evidence' and if it passes this test then they have the second value judgement of whether the new evidence discloses anything 'material'. In all cases (it would seem) post review correspondence fails to clear both hurdles. It is therefore IMPOSSIBLE to make an effective complaint about the review process.
In what way does this practice meet the requirements of good complaint handling laid down by PHSO? It is clear that it provides no opportunity to 'put things right' as you never find any error to correct. As you do not respond to this correspondence in a 'substantive' way - in fact there is no response at all, this further decision making process is not 'open and accountable' neither is it 'customer focused' as it leaves the customer completely in the dark. Is it acting 'fairly and proportionately' to deny every single post-review complaint? The proportions all seem to be in favour of the Ombudsman.
No wonder Greg Mulholland asked Dame Julie Mellor at the recent PASC meeting 16.12.13 quote:
"If I could move on to the complaints about the service, going back to some of the discussions that we were having a couple of years ago and indeed probably about a year ago with you and also previously with your predecessor, there were two areas of dissatisfaction. One was the small proportion of investigations; the other was the seeming inability that many people perceived of challenging ombudsman decisions when they believed them to be wrong and had good reason to believe them to be wrong."
We can see now that this seeming inability to challenge ombudsman decisions is perceived for good reason. Your own figures have confirmed that it is IMPOSSIBLE to challenge a review decision with post-review correspondence. No matter how inappropriate the review process, there is no way to challenge it unless you go to judicial review.
In my own case the PHSO paperwork confirms that it would be inappropriate to expect me to take the public body named in my complaint to judicial review. Yet following my flawed review (evidence of factual inaccuracies and overlooked/ignored facts supplied)PHSO expect me to take them to judicial review if I continue to be dissatisfied. There is clearly a double standard being applied here. My circumstances have not changed.
Is judicial review a viable option and thereby a reasonable way to hold Ombudsman decision making to account? Let us look at the facts from the 2013 Annual Report. Quote:
"In 2012-13 there were four applications for judicial review of our decisions. All four were refused permission to proceed. One other application for review, from 2011-12, was granted permission and we successfully defended the claim. In another case, where a hearing was due to take place, both parties agreed to discontinue the claim and we accepted the complaint for investigation."
Taking action regarding judicial review will involve expensive legal advice and much time and energy to prepare the papers for court in a short time span (three months). No one would go to all this trouble and cost unless they felt strongly that their case had not been handled fairly by PHSO in the first instance. Yet all four applications were refused permission to proceed. The single case which was taken up for investigation must have originally been turned down at both assessment stage and review stage. It was only the threat of a 'hearing' which forced PHSO to reconsider and finally accept the complaint for investigation, yet there was clearly valid evidence here which had been recognised by the court and previously ignored by PHSO. Should the average person be expected to go to these lengths simply to have their complaint handled correctly by a specialist complaint handling service?
This is an appalling state of affairs and the data you have provided confirms that at the review stage the Ombudsman is UNACCOUNTABLE and UNRESPONSIVE denying justice on a daily basis. No wonder you are so reluctant to confirm this dismal statistic. This thread has now been linked to http://phsothefacts.com/foi/
Yours sincerely,
Della Reynolds.
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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Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
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Dear Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman,
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I am writing to request an internal review of Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's handling of my FOI request 'New evidence'.
It can be seen by the number and type of responses to this request that it is important for the public to know that if they find fault in the review process and/or have new evidence to present they will be given a fair hearing by the Ombudsman on the submission of post review correspondence. Can you therefore confirm whether any of the 379 people, including the 5 who submitted new evidence were provided with fresh assessments following their post-review correspondence?
A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/n...
Yours faithfully,
D. Reynolds.
Thank you for your e-mail to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman. This return e-mail shows that we have received your
correspondence.
All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure
Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
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services. For more information about this please visit www.cctmark.gov.uk
Dear Della
Your information request FDN-179872
I write in response to your emails of 8, 12 and 21 January 2014.
I can confirm that in the three months I covered we did not reconsider any cases where we received post review correspondence. It is uncommon for us to change our decision after we have already reviewed the decision once. This is because the purpose of the review stage is to identify and address issues with how we have handled the case and the decision we have reached.
It is not accurate to say 'these figures would suggest that PHSO have a 100% accuracy rate in relation to decision making.' At review we do find cases where we have made an error in our decision and we will put this right. In our Annual Report we explain the number of cases where we have made an error in our decision. I have provided the information for you below .
I understand that you believe we should be reconsidering our decisions after we have already reviewed a case (at post review stage). However, after a case has had a review there comes a point when it is necessary to draw discussion about matters to a close. This is why we say we will only acknowledge post review correspondence unless we are supplied with fresh evidence or significant new information that might lead us to look again at the complaint.
I hope this clarification is helpful.
Yours sincerely
Claire Helm
Freedom of Information/Data Protection Officer
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Information from 2012/13 Annual Report
Complaints about us
We received 1,004 complaints about our service or decisions we made on complaints (compared with 1,184 in 2011-12).
During the year:
We fully or partly upheld 61 complaints about our service (37%, compared to 39% in 2011-12).
We looked at 979 complaints about our decisions (equal to 4% of all the decisions we made during the year, compared to 5% in 2011-12).
We fully or partly upheld 103 complaints about our decisions (equal to 0.4% of all decisions we made during the year, the same as in 2011-12).
We took action to put things right where we had got things wrong. This includes apologising, giving a better explanation of our decision and in some cases agreeing to look again at our original decision.
All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for legal purposes.
The MessageLabs Anti Virus Service is the first managed service to achieve the CSIA Claims Tested Mark (CCTM Certificate Number 2006/04/0007), the UK Government quality mark initiative for information security products and services. For more information about this please visit www.cctmark.gov.uk
Dear Claire Helm,
Thank you for the confirmation that not one of the 379 post review correspondents were able to secure a further assessment. Following your normal procedure, none of these people would have received a reply to explain why their well crafted arguments and careful inclusion of new evidence was in fact irrelevant. As customer service is embedded in your practice it would appear that these particular customers are no longer considered worthy of an explanation.
You argue that there is an opportunity to disagree with the decision at review, but what if you have reason to disagree with the review decision? There is no opportunity to disagree then.
According to data for 2012, 95% of review customers were very or fairly dissatisfied with their outcome. Where is the right of redress for the 95%? They can not complain about issues regarding the review until after the review, but all post-review correspondence fails to be acknowledged. All of it, all 100% with no exception. This is remarkable. No wonder the review team can treat customers with contempt. They know there can be no comeback.
If your figures for the 3 month period are averaged across the year then just over 1,500 people continue to write to the Ombudsman after their case is closed in order to obtain a reconsideration of the decision. 1,500 per annum. What a large number that is and all of them do so in error as the review team have a 100% accuracy rate.
It is obvious to anyone that there is a policy for none acceptance of post review correspondence. That can be the only explanation. I have recently tested the promise made by Dame Julie Mellor that new evidence will be taken into account post-review and that a fresh assessment will be undertaken where this evidence demonstrates 'material' facts. I presented my new evidence directly to Ms. Mellor for her attention. I will inform all interested parties of the outcome on the site phsothefacts.com
Yours sincerely,
Della Reynolds.
Thank you for your e-mail to the Parliamentary and Health Service
Ombudsman. This return e-mail shows that we have received your
correspondence.
All email communications with PHSO pass through the Government Secure
Intranet, and may be automatically logged, monitored and/or recorded for
legal purposes.
The MessageLabs Anti Virus Service is the first managed service to achieve
the CSIA Claims Tested Mark (CCTM Certificate Number 2006/04/0007), the UK
Government quality mark initiative for information security products and
services. For more information about this please visit www.cctmark.gov.uk
RESTRICTED
Dear D. Reynolds
I am writing in response to your email of 1 February 2014. I apologise for the delay in responding to you. I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with our handling of your information request entitled ‘New evidence’.
Under our internal complaints procedure, your complaint has been passed to the Head of Risk, Assurance and Programme Management Office, Mr Steve Brown.
Mr Brown will consider your concerns and will send you a full reply once his review is complete. This review of your complaint is the only review that we will undertake.
We aim to reply to such complaints within 40 working days.
Yours sincerely
Tanya Jackson
Business Support Officer to the Review Team Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
E: [email address]
W: www.ombudsman.org.uk
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Head of Risk, Assurance and Programme Management Office
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
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The MessageLabs Anti Virus Service is the first managed service to achieve
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