Written evidence submitted by Mr Gary Powell
The CLG Committee has called for submissions for its further review of the work and performance of the Local Government Ombudsman. This submission is in response to that invitation.
I am the founder and former director of Local Government Ombudsman Watch, and previously submitted evidence to the CLG Committee in 2012:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmcomloc/writev/lgo/lgo04.htm
and to the ODPM Committee in 2005:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmodpm/458/458.pdf
Given the overwhelming evidence of institutional pro-council bias on the part of the office of the Local Government Ombudsman – evidence that some other private citizens and I worked very hard to publicise since Local Government Ombudsman Watch was set up in 2003 – the fact that it is now 2013 and the same LGO spin-doctoring and whitewashing is as rife as ever, raises the question of why the CLG Committee, and its predecessor, the ODPM Committee, have allowed this to happen, and are continuing to allow this to happen.
I have experienced at first hand the effect that the entrenched and repeatedly whitewashed maladministration committed by the Local Government Ombudsman has on the emotional and basic existential well-being of very vulnerable people. I experienced this both as a result of supporting a family in 2003 that had experienced maladministration from their local council, and also from the hundreds of people who e-mailed me when I was director of Local Government Ombudsman Watch, including people who had clearly suffered grave injustice and who were considering suicide because of their desperation.
It is truly appalling that such a warped, callous, dishonest and self-serving institution as the Local Government Ombudsman can be allowed to continue to function with impunity in this modern, democratic state, and indeed, apparently with political collusion. It is an institution that is a disgrace to our nation and a betrayal of the citizens for whom it is a last resort for justice. It is not only a waste of taxpayers’ money: it is a parasite that takes from its host with a hollow promise to do some good, whilst disguising its truly pathological function. Furthermore, it has now become patently clear that the physicians who have the means to cure this pathology lack the willingness and commitment to do so.
The time is now over for repeating the same detailed arguments and compelling evidence that have been presented to a select committee that goes through the motions but is fundamentally slack, unresponsive and indifferent – a process that now spans the ten years since LGO Watch was founded. The CLG Committee has a wealth of overwhelming evidence at its disposal that proves just what a travesty the Local Government Ombudsman is, and there is no point in repeating oneself or spending further hours rebutting the usual taxpayer-funded whitewashing and subterfuge from the LGO, when it is clearly a completely futile exercise.
The final straw is the so-called independent “External Evaluation of the Local Government Ombudsman in England,” published this year. It is anything but an “independent” evaluation. The very fact that the evaluation was commissioned by the LGO, rather than by the CLG Committee, meant that the LGO were able to select people who they knew would be sympathetic to their situation:
"The following independent report on the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) was commissioned by the LGO in response to a recommendation of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government in 2012." (p4)
The LGO’s manipulative behaviour with regard to previous Ipsos-MORI Customer Satisfaction Surveys, detailed in my previous submissions, comes immediately to mind here.
With regard to the composition of the investigating Team, we are told:
"The Team was Chaired by Richard Thomas CBE, Chairman of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council and former Information Commissioner.1 The other members of the Team were Jim Martin, the current Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and former Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland;2 and Dr Richard Kirkham,3 an academic from the University of Sheffield with previous research experience of ombudsman schemes." (P4)
So one member was a former Information Commissioner. Another was the current Scottish Public Service Ombudsman. And the third, Dr Richard Kirkham, was someone already very well-known to us at LGO Watch as one of the Local Government Ombudsman’s strongest sympathisers and allies. The following was published on the Ombudsmanwatchers’ website in 2009. (The reference in it is to the 2005 select committee evidence session.)
“Following the damning evidence submitted to the select committee by a number of complainants an article was written by Dr Richard Kirkham purporting to be a complainant's view of the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). However, nothing could be further from the truth. We doubt Dr. Kirkham even bothered to speak to a complainant before writing his article. His article is so pro LGO one could be excused for thinking it was written by a friend of the LGO. After reading his article we decided to find out just who Dr. Kirkham was and soon discovered that far from being independent he, like the LGO, is also member of the BIOA. Things must be bad if the LGO have to get their friends and colleagues to write positive articles about them in order to shore up their evangelical agenda.
Dr. Kirkham states in his article 'In a recent Parliamentary review of the work of the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister received a number of submissions from dissatisfied users of the service provided by the LGO (Select Committee on the ODPM, 2004-2005, Ev 16-28). In amongst these submissions, there were even proposals for the abolition of the LGO (ibid., Ev 26). To a certain extent, such criticisms misunderstand the purpose of public sector redress mechanisms and the remit of the Ombudsmen.' Obviously he forgot about Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield effectively suggesting that during his 1995 review of the LGO.”
Although Dr Kirkham made the claim for his article that it was a “Complainant’s view of the Local Government Ombudsman,” it was in fact nothing other than a paean to the LGO at a time when the objectivity of the institution had been called into question by real complainants, such as myself. (It should also be noted that, despite the LGO’s attempts to dismiss dissatisfied complainants who were campaigning to expose the bias of the LGO, in the case I brought to their attention, the LGO found administrative fault and suggested pecuniary compensation for the complainant I was representing. It was the appalling maladministration, dishonesty and subterfuge that I discovered in the course of this successful outcome being realised that caused me to set up LGO Watch. The campaign to abolish or reform the LGO was therefore started by the representative of a complainant who had achieved a successful outcome, albeit that this outcome came about only because of a persistence and determination fuelled by my outrage at institutional injustice committed with impunity against so many people, some of whom were very vulnerable indeed.)
Dr Kirkham’s article did not even indicate that he had ever submitted a complaint to the LGO, and so the claim to represent the perspective of a complainant when writing such a complimentary piece about the LGO was highly questionable.
It should also be noted that Dr Kirkham did not play a minor role in the drafting of the “independent” External Evaluation. In the Preface, we are told:
"Richard Kirkham undertook the bulk of the research and drafting of this Report for which his colleagues are most grateful." (p4)
I am sure that the LGO is “most grateful” as well.
The following paragraph from the External Evaluation summarises the whitewash that has taken place:
“The current programme of change does not undermine our view that the LGO is an organisation made up of dedicated and hard-working people who deliver appropriate administrative justice on a daily basis. We also recognise that the LGO has a long track record of being a reflective organisation that has often been a leading innovator in its field.” (p4)
Needless to say, the Local Government Ombudsman was very pleased at the exoneration given to it by this farcical External Evaluation, and published the following on its website:
An independent external evaluation of the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) is published today. It confirms that the LGO is independent and accountable; and it provides clear evidence that the public have access to a fair and effective route to redress when they have complaints about local public services and social care providers.”
http://www.lgo.org.uk/news/2013/apr/lgo-welcomes-independent-confirmation-fair-effective-ombudsman/
Confidence in the CLG Committee has now been completely undermined by its having allowed the LGO to hijack the agenda yet again – this time by setting up its own friendly pseudo-independent investigation. The effect of this is to bolster the LGO’s privileged position as a firmly-entrenched master of whitewashing both its own and also local authorities’ maladministration with impunity, and of manipulating complacent politicians for whom it is more expedient to tinker with the peripherals and to try to give the impression to the public that they are genuinely concerned about a failing institution, than it is to challenge the blatant injustices that have been brought to their attention over the past ten years. If the select committee had been in any way determined to ensure a proper independent External Evaluation was carried out, it would not have allowed it to be commissioned by the very institution that was being evaluated, and to be dominated by a person who was a central and longstanding ally of, and propagandist for, that institution: something that has predictably resulted in an adulatory whitewash that the LGO has been able to publish as a trophy on its website. Such discretion as has been granted to the LGO in this instance represents a travesty of the kind of values that the CLG Committee should be championing on behalf of the good citizen.
The CLG Committee, like its predecessor, the ODPM Committee, is successfully steering a course that avoids robustly challenging the LGO for its appalling institutional bias, for its paradigmatic maladministration and for its betrayal of our citizens. The consequences of the Committee doing what the taxpayer actually expects it to do would have been to upset the vested interests of those in power and authority who benefit from this unjust status quo, and of bringing about the public exposure of the true level of maladministration in local authorities: something that the current party political consensus would clearly like to avoid.
I am ashamed of how badly the ODPM Committee and the CLG Committee have let down the people of this country. Political expediency, complacency and indifference to intense human suffering caused by institutional injustice, have all been allowed to trump principle, and to trump the value of conscientious, impartial and properly concerned conduct in political life. No wonder so many people in this country feel disenfranchised from the political system, and no wonder so many people feel cynical about the behaviour and motivation of politicians.
Gary Powell
October 2013