The Local Government Ombudsman ‘Comeback’ con
Introduction
I have been involved with the LGO since June 1997. My personal complaint is about Council maladministration that has been ongoing since 1990. As a result, I have a wealth of information and experience regarding the tricks, cons and subterfuges used by the LGO to block, divert or at least significantly delay, valid complaints of maladministration. Although my knowledge and experience is primarily based on the LGO York office, I have no doubt that the other two LGO offices use the same sort of immoral tactics to derail perfectly valid complaints.
The Great ‘Comeback’ Con is one of a number of planned articles. It Illustrates the lengths an Ombudsman will go to in order to hide the irrationality of their original decisions and preserve their dubious statistics. Many complainants may not be aware of the existence of the Comeback Procedure let alone understand the criteria involved, Therefore I have reproduced the following definition of Comeback, extracted from the LGO ‘Glossary of terminology’.
Comeback Procedure
The term comeback is used when a complaint has been determined without a formal report and the complainant alleges that one or more of the following apply:
- The complaint, or a material part of it, has not been understood by the commission’s staff;
- Evidence submitted before termination has not been taken into account;
- The council has not been telling the true story and evidence of this is provided; or
- New information has been supplied about the original complaint.
If the complainant meets any one of the stated criteria, the initial decision not to investigate their complaint should be properly reviewed by a senior officer. However, anybody who has ever complained to the LGO will be aware, that what the LGO say and do, are two completely different things.
By chronicling my efforts to use the comeback procedure in an attempt overturn an LGO decision not to investigate a complaint I made in 2002 I hope to illustrate the problems other complainants may also face.
My Experience of the system
Firstly, after refusing to investigate my 2002 complaint the LGO made no attempt to inform me about the existence of the Comeback Procedure, let alone the associated criteria. As a result I wasted a number of months bringing to the attention of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister the fact that the LGO accepts the word of Councils without validation. Even when available third party evidence could prove the council was not telling the truth.
Furthermore, I was not even made aware of the LGO Internal Complaints Procedure until after my complaint to the ODPM.
Once I knew there was a Comeback Procedure I made a formal application for the this to the LGO. My formal Comeback request met all four of the Comeback criteria, therefore, I was very confident that such a strong case would persuade the LGO to Comeback on my complaint. However, the response received was unexpected. I was informed that my complaint had already been through the Comeback Procedure and the LGO was not prepared to put it through again unless material new evidence was provided.
I was intrigued by the LGO response as I had certainly not made a prior Comeback request. I had only just been made aware of the procedure by the ODPM, so how could I have done something without knowing about it? I later discovered that a letter I had sent to the LGO, on a totally different subject, had been incorrectly logged as a Comeback request and subsequently rejected. Suspiciously, without me even knowing about it. I brought this, and other issues, to the attention of the Deputy Ombudsman using their Internal Complaints Procedure.
After another few wasted months with the Internal Complaints Procedure, I eventually received a letter from an Assistant Ombudsman. He stated that my ‘complaint’ did not meet the Comeback criteria and suggested that I submit a new complaint instead. He even went to the extraordinary lengths of suggesting I had a good case for a new investigation because the Council had not been telling the truth. Note the third reason why you can request comeback!
The Assistant Ombudsman had introduced a paradox into his argument, On one hand he was arguing that because the council had not been telling the truth I could submit a new complaint whilst at the same time rejecting my Comeback request which, by his own argument, clearly met the criteria for Comeback. To paraphrase a famous quote, that’s logic Jim, but not as we know it. LGO officers, particularly Assistant Ombudsman and above often contradict themselves or their colleagues, therefore, I have decided to make this irritating habit the subject of another article.
Surely it was easier for all concerned for the LGO just to comeback on my complaint. Why should I have to submit another complaint when they already have a comeback procedure in place to handle cases like mine? What is the purpose of the Comeback Procedure if not to comeback on cases that meet the criteria?
I pointed this out to the LGO and again requested Comeback on my complaint. I received a letter stating that my Comeback request was now out of time, and as a result, it would have to be registered as a new complaint. I was unaware of any time limit to Comeback and furthermore, the reason for the delay was wholly attributable to the LGO. I pushed them for further information and found that they had surreptitiously introduced a new three month time limit on Comeback.
However, I successfully argued that they could not backdate the introduction of a new rule, so although it would stop new complainants seeking to Comeback on their complaints after three months it could not be used to stop complainants seeking Comeback on complaints registered before the introduction of the new time limit.
During this period the LGO was trying to ‘persuade’ me to drop my Comeback requests and submit a new complaint. When I refused, the Assistant Ombudsman, without my knowledge or agreement, wrote a new complaint in my name. He then issued a new investigation number and asked an investigator to contact me to take the ‘new’ complaint further. As you will appreciate, I was very angry with his deception. I wanted Comeback on my complaint, and in any event, if I was going to submit a new complaint the last person I would want to write it would be an Assistant Ombudsman. He was clearly acting outside an LGO’s powers. The Ombudsman is not statutory empowered to instigate a complaint. This will be the subject of another article.
Furthermore, the Assistant Ombudsman only wanted to pursue the ‘new’ complaint about the Council not telling them the truth and not my original complaint about the Council producing fraudulent plans in an attempt to complete a highway. In any event, why should the LGO need a complaint from me to pursue a Council that had lied to them. They are supposed to have the same powers as a High Court Judge so if they cannot take action when a Council lies to them then it just highlights a serious flaw in their system.
I was then contacted by an Investigator, and at the end of our discussions she could not understand why the Ombudsman had not Comeback on my case. In fact , she stated that she would support my case for Comeback. Furthermore, she could not understand why evidence I had submitted earlier had not been looked at.. During this conversation I was also informed that it was their policy to accept the word of a Council without validation. This was later confirmed in writing by the Deputy Ombudsman who could see nothing wrong in accepting the word of a Council without validation. The Deputy Ombudsman essentially admitted that a Council can stop any investigation in it’s tracks just by misrepresent the truth. Furthermore, when the LGO find out they refuse to Comeback on the complaint.
I wrote again requesting Comeback, confident that, now I had the support of the Investigator, common sense would prevail and my complaint would be investigated under their Comeback procedure. The Assistant Ombudsman again refused to Comeback on my complaint. He also threatened to get the Ombudsman to stop answering my letters if I did not agree to a new complaint instead of Comeback.
The investigator contacted me again asking me to allow her to investigate the ‘new’ complaint. I asked her why they were refusing to Comeback on my complaint whilst at the same time pushing me to allow them to investigate under a new complaint number. The answer provides damning evidence against the LGO.
Essentially, they are manipulating their work to improve their published statistics. The LGO have targets to achieve and Comeback on an old decision would compromise the achievement of those targets. They prefer a complainant to make numerous complaints about the same problem, thus allowing the LGO to claim they have resolved a number of cases within a given statistical period, rather than having to admit their failure to resolve the problem at all.
When I stated I wanted Comeback on my complaint rather than a new complaint, I was told they would now write to the Council telling them that the Ombudsman would be closing my ‘new’ complaint (Remember this is the ‘new’ (third) complaint which the Assistant Ombudsman conjured up without my agreement or knowledge. A complaint he had no statutory authority to implement in the first place).
I wrote to the Ombudsman asking how they could close a complaint that I never submitted in the first place. I am still waiting for an answer.
Statistically speaking, the Ombudsman has claimed to have dealt with three complaints for me since 1997, whilst in reality they have failed to resolve one. They are even arguing that I should now submit another ‘new’ (fourth) complaint. When will it end? How many statistically resolved complaints does the Ombudsman want to squeeze out of one complaint.
Summary
I would ask readers to look at the LGO statistics in a new light. Does the LGO actually resolve 18,000 cases a year or does this figure also include a large number of unresolved cases like mine that are just being churned?
During my long quest for Comeback on my complaint I have experienced some of the most perverse and ridiculous reasoning one could ever imagine. Most of these will be included in another article I am writing chronicling events from 1997 to date,. However, there is one example that is appropriate to include here.
Whilst requesting Comeback on my complaint, one of my assertions was that the County Council had not been telling the true story. The evidence I supplied was a letter from the County Council proving that they had not been telling the true story. One would imagine that this met the criteria of the Comeback Procedure, However, the LGO stated it would not be fair on the Council to Comeback on my complaint because of the time delay and that I would have to give the County Council a second chance to address my complaint before they would get involved. This was a delay that the LGO themselves had introduced by failing to validate Council statements and refusing to Comeback on my complaint earlier. However, the comeback procedure makes no mention of giving the Council a second chance nor is there any statutory reason for doing so. The LGO would only be statutory obliged to give the Council the chance to respond to a new complaint.
I hope the reader understands the irony of the situation. The LGO considers it unfair on the Council to Comeback on a complaint because the Council had not told her the true story in the first place! Please note the complete lack of consideration about the fairness of the situation on the complainant. I have been suffering for eight years because the Council has not been telling the LGO the true story. Also note the misleading statement made by the LGO to the ODPM Committee: ‘The LGOs are independent of the complainant and the council, but they strive to provide complainants with a service that is sensitive to their needs.’ In the words of Kylie Minogue ‘I should be so lucky’
The Ombudsman frequently misrepresents reality. Most people know this phenomenon as spin. The following was submitted to the recent ODPM committee regarding comeback.
‘The decisions on all cases where the complainant expresses concerns about the appropriateness or fairness of the conclusions are reviewed at senior level. These are termed ‘comebacks’ and the Commission monitors closely both the numbers and outcomes. In 2003–04 there were 1,436 comebacks (7.7% of decisions) of which 207 (1.1% of comebacks) required further action (in 191 cases this was a further explanation of the original decision)’.
Using my case as an example, the Assistant Ombudsman who handled my complaint also ‘reviewed’ my case under the Comeback procedure. I was also told by an Investigator that it was LGO policy for a review to be based on a summary provided solely by the person whose decision you were challenging. So in essence the person whose decision you are challenging either determines your Comeback request, or provides the only information available for a more senior officer to do so. I am sure readers will appreciate the fundamental unfairness of this policy.
The only reason for requesting Comeback in the first place is because you consider the initial decision not to investigate was flawed. However, you then face the LGO Comeback procedure which is also flawed. This double whammy is no doubt the reason why only 1.1% of comebacks require the LGO to take further action. The LGO is statistically implying that only 1.1% of their original decisions are ever wrong. Surprising when you take into account that many comeback requests include new evidence the LGO was unaware of when they took the original decision. Foresight or fiddle? I will let the reader reach their own conclusions.
As far as I am concerned the LGO has been guilty of more acts of incompetence, maladministration and spin than the Authority I originally complained about.
How does the LGO get away it? The answer is they are unaccountable.
I have made some damning allegations about the LGO, however, the reader should be aware of the following information. As a result of previous duplicitous behaviour by the Council and the LGO I decided to record my conversations and meetings with them. Therefore, I have recordings to support all my assertions. My article is not based on vague recollections and interpretation of what was, or may have been, stated.
Trevor R Nunn (2006)