In September 2011 the Government was told to ‘hang its head in shame’ after our report Defending the Indefensible highlighted repeated failings by the Ministry of Defence to treat fairly a family who were interned by the Japanese during the Second World War.  Alerting Parliament to her concerns, Ann Abraham described it as: ‘The worst example I have seen, in nearly nine years … of a government department getting things wrong and then repeatedly failing to put things right or learn from its mistakes.’ She said that her report should be required reading for every aspiring senior civil servant.

A different investigation into the Rural Payments Agency’s (part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) administration of a farmers’ subsidy scheme found that farmers had missed out on payments they were entitled to.  Ann Abraham told Parliament that this was the second time she had investigated poor administration of the scheme.  Although the new report told a similar story of poor administration, she wrote that: ‘… the response from the Rural Payments Agency and Defra has been a very different one this time, and I am pleased that my recommendations have been accepted in full.’

On two occasions we reported on our work with the Local Government Ombudsman. Both reports alerted Parliament to the human consequences of  the lack of integration in health and social care. The first joint report highlighted failings in care for a vulnerable adult in Merseyside, while the second revealed how a man in Newcastle with Down’s syndrome was detained unnecessarily in hospital and was then moved into inappropriate locked accommodation until his death.