The true cost and effectiveness of the Local Government Ombudsman during 2009/10
Taxpayers directly funded them to the tune of £16,145,000 They decided 10,309 complaints. That's £1,566 per complaint decided.(The LGO also train council officers in addition to deciding complaints but they do charge local authorities for this service thus deriving a further £139,000 per year income. Although this additional income is indirectly funded by taxpayers it has been excluded from the calculations below because it has no direct bearing on the cost of deciding complaints.)
They locally settled 2,366 complaints. That's 22.95% of the 10,309 complaints they decided. They also issued 69 reports finding maladministration causing injustice. That's 0.67% of the 10,309 complaints they decided. Total complaints in favour of the complainant = 2,366 + 69 = 2435. That's 23.6% of the complaints they decided.
They requested/accepted just over £1,300,000 compensation for complainants by way of local settlements or recommendations in their formal reports. However, as with Trafford Council and many others what the LGO recommend and what the complainant eventually receive are often two different things.
For argument sake lets use the higher figure of £1,300,000. That's an average of £533.88 per lucky complainant. About three times less than the £1,566 it costs the LGO to determine every complaint.
The Government could (except for the self financing local government training section) close down the LGO, give every single complainant, not just the lucky 23.6%, £533.88 and still save the taxpayer nearly £12 million pounds. £.16.145 million from LGO savings + £1.3 million saved in Council compensation payments less the £5.5 million total compensation for the 10,309 complainants. Now that is something the spending challenge should consider! PS We have already submitted this suggestion.