Complaint about the SIA
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Licence application and personal details were returned to the wrong person, and poor complaint handling
Background to the complaint
On 4 August 2006 the Security Industry Authority (the Authority) wrote to tell Mr S that his application form for a door supervisor’s licence was incomplete. They enclosed his payment, identification documents, and the application form of a third party, Mr A. On receipt, Mr S telephoned the Authority to ask where his application form was. The Authority said it appeared that his application had been separated from his documents and replaced with Mr A’s application. Mr S asked to speak to someone who would take responsibility for rectifying the problem, but was told that no one could tell him where his application was. Enquiries would be made with the document handling centre. The Authority told Mr S that someone would call him, but that he should call them if he had heard nothing within two and a half weeks.
During August and September 2006 Mr S chased the Authority for progress. On 20 September he asked the Authority for the contact details of someone who could resolve matters or tell him what was going on. He sent a letter of complaint to the Home Office. On 2 October a Customer Services Manager (the Manager) telephoned Mr S. He said it was likely that the two application forms had been switched and that he was having difficulty contacting Mr A. Later in the month, the Home Office wrote to Mr S; they passed on the Authority’s apologies for their poor service and outlined the Authority’s complaints process.
By the Authority’s account, they twice telephoned Mr A in November 2006; he confirmed that he had received another person’s application form. He agreed to return it. Not having received the form back, the Authority wrote to Mr A on 28 November asking him to return it. Also on 28 November a Customer Services Officer (the Officer) wrote to Mr S, apologising for the Authority’s error, and saying that they had located his form and were in the process of retrieving it. In a letter dated 12 December the Officer told Mr S that they were having difficulty retrieving the form. During a telephone conversation with Mr S on 14 December, the Manager summarised the letter of 12 December (which Mr S had not yet received), and said it seemed that the letters of 28 November and 12 December contradicted each other, and that the first letter could have been unintentionally misleading. The Manager said he could not guarantee that Mr S’s application would be retrieved and advised him to submit a new one. He recognised the trouble caused to Mr S and that he had lost faith in the system.
On 29 December 2006 Mr S replied to the Officer’s letter of 12 December. He said that he was not satisfied with the explanation given, and commented that the Authority seemed more concerned that he submit a new application than they were about the original mistake. Mr S said he had little confidence in the Authority’s ability to protect his personal data but that, in spite of this, he was enclosing a new application form and appropriate fee.
On 9 February 2007 the Authority wrote to Mr S to apologise for the inconvenience caused. They said they had been dealing with more applications than their system had been designed for, and ‘some isolated errors have occurred’. The Authority refunded Mr S’s £190 application fee. On 16 February the Authority wrote to Mr A again, asking him to return the application form. In March Mr S wrote to the Authority; he acknowledged the refund, but said that he could not accept that they took complaints seriously and that he had not been made aware of, or seen, their complaints policy and procedure. He also complained that he had not been kept informed of progress, and that the Authority’s letter of 9 February had not addressed all of his concerns. The Authority apologised to Mr S on 22 March for the delay in replying to his letter of 29 December 2006, for the error over his application form, and for not calling him back much sooner. They accepted they had raised his expectations over the retrieval of his application.
What we investigated
Mr S complained to the Ombudsman in January 2007 that the Authority had lost his application form containing his personal details, and that he had not received a satisfactory response to his complaints. He expressed great concern about the potential misuse of his personal information and said he had incurred unnecessary costs and worry in pursuing his complaint.
We investigated the Authority’s handling of Mr S’s licence application and their handling of his subsequent complaint. During our investigation we listened to recordings of telephone conversations between Mr S and the Authority.
What our investigation found
Judged against the Principles of Good Administration, the Authority did not get it right in this case. They should not have sent Mr S’s form to Mr A and vice versa, the most likely cause of which was human error. The seriousness of the error, at a time when identity theft is much in the media and can have wide-ranging effects on victims, led us to find the Authority were maladministrative.
Having made a mistake, it was incumbent on the Authority to put things right. However, their complaints process did not deliver the outcome Mr S sought, nor reassure him that the Authority were a reliable organisation. Despite being told that someone would contact him within three weeks, Mr S was not contacted again (apart from a short standard email reply) until almost seven weeks later. The lack of contact exacerbated Mr S’s frustrations and indicated to him the Authority’s disregard of his legitimate concerns. There was no audit trail of evidence to show what action the Authority took to contact Mr A or to resolve Mr S’s complaint. That lack of record-keeping was poor administration.
The Authority failed to explain their complaints process to Mr S. The Home Office outlined the process, but the Authority should have done that themselves. Mr S’s frustrations could have been lessened had the Authority explained that his complaint was following a defined process. We saw no evidence that the Authority addressed Mr S’s comment that he had not been made aware of a complaints policy. Public bodies should provide clear information about how people can complain, but we found no evidence that information about the Authority’s complaints process was widely available to the general public or routinely given to complainants. Things improved after October 2006; the Authority sought to address Mr S’s complaint and demonstrate ownership of the problem; they kept him updated and the telephone calls were an attempt at good customer service. That said, the Authority did unintentionally raise Mr S’s expectations about the retrieval of his form.
In conclusion, the Authority’s initial mistake combined with an ineffectual complaints process amounted to maladministration. They did not get it right, nor did they make a good job of attempting to put things right. They did not, at least initially, acknowledge and apologise for their mistake, or explain what had gone wrong; nor did they act to put things right quickly and effectively. An ineffectual complaints process is not good public administration. Mr S was left feeling understandably concerned that his personal information had been sent to a third party. He was frustrated and outraged. A customer’s perception of an organisation is not only shaped by the way that organisation conduct their usual business, but also by how they respond when things go wrong.As Mr S observed to us:
‘This to me is a classic example of why complainants become frustrated with the system(s) and do not bother to pursue issues or complaints … . My experiences leave me with the continuing view that the SIA is very poorly managed.’
We upheld Mr S’s complaint and concluded our investigation in February 2008.
Outcome
There was no evidence that the Authority’s mistake was caused by a systemic fault, so we made no recommendations in that respect. We did, however, recommend that the Authority:
- apologise to Mr S for not fully explaining their complaints process to him and for not addressing this point in their response to his letter of March 2007; and
- review their complaints process, and in particular the need to make information about their full complaints process publicly available, that complainants are routinely given the information about their full complaints process, and that they keep a complete audit trail of their actions to resolve complaints.
The Authority implemented our recommendations.
Principles of Good Administration
The following Principles of Good Administration were referred to in this case summary:
- ‘Getting it right’ (acting in accordance with the public body’s policy and guidance).
- ‘Putting things right’ (putting mistakes right quickly and effectively).
Principles of Good Complaint Handling
The Principles of Good Complaint Handling were not referred to in our report but this case summary serves to illustrate the following Principle:
- ‘Being open and accountable’ (publishing clear, accurate and complete information about how to complain, and how and when to take complSaints further).
