Report of the Head of Democracy and Governance

The Committee is asked to note the content of the Ombudsman’s Annual Review letter.

The Committee received a report of the Head of Democracy and Governance including the Local Government Ombudsman’s Annual Review Letter and spreadsheets, which provided details of the decisions that had been made and the complaints the Ombudsman had received.

The Head of Democracy and Governance informed the Committee that out of 17 complaints only five had been investigated and of those only three had been upheld. The Ombudsman had not found the Council responsible for maladministration in any of the cases.  She added that all Members should have received information about a toolkit referred to in the Ombudsman’s letter.

Councillor Khan noted that the three cases which had been upheld all related to Benefits and Tax.  He asked for clarification on these cases.

The Head of Democracy and Governance advised that all three cases had a long history.  She explained the background to each case; all having occurred before 2014.  There had been a lack of processes and procedures at that time.  The Ombudsman had not found the Council to be completely at fault.  Following a further comment from Councillor Khan, the Head of Democracy and Governance stated that the Ombudsman did not add ‘in part’ to their decision.

Councillor Khan said that the explanations indicated that there were issues with change of circumstances and communication.  He asked whether processes had been put in place to resolve these issues.

The Head of Revenues and Benefits responded that the service had cleared a massive backlog.  Processes had been put in place to respond to Freedom of Information requests in a timely manner.  He commented that he was surprised that the number of complaints were as low as they had been reported.  However, he was not aware of any complaints currently with the Ombudsman about his service. The service tried to resolve all complaints at stages one and two.  At stage two, people were signposted to the Ombudsman if they were still unsatisfied.

In response to Councillor Khan’s comment about themes, the Head of Revenues and Benefits considered that he did not believe there was one theme arising from the three cases.  He explained that in one case payments were normally offset against the oldest debt.  When the resident had asked for the payment to go towards their latest bill this had been done.  The bailiff would still have visited the person as they still had the old debt outstanding.  The service processed 20,000 changes last year and he could not guarantee that there would be no complaints to the Ombudsman.  He preferred to resolve any complaints at stages one and two as quickly as possible.

Councillor Watkin, the Portfolio Holder for Shared Services, said that all processes had changed under the guidance of the current Head of Revenues and Benefits.  He acknowledged that there had been three cases upheld, but the Council was not entirely liable.  The problems had been spread over a number of years.

Councillor Khan commented that if he received complaints, he would analyse them and consider if there were any patterns which he would try to understand and resolve.

The Chair thanked the Committee for the robust debate.

RESOLVED –

that the Local Government Ombudsman’s Annual Review Letter 2015 be noted.