Foreword
Jump to
The role of the Parliamentary Ombudsman is to consider complaints that government organisations have not acted properly or fairly, or that they have provided a poor service. If there has been injustice, sometimes this means acting as a champion to support individual people who challenge government bureaucracy. Sometimes it also means drawing mistakes made by government organisations to the attention of Parliament, to help ensure that other organisations do not repeat those mistakes.
‘When government organisations make a mistake, they should try to put the person affected back in the position they would have been in if the mistake had not happened. ’
Dame Julie Mellor, DBE
This is the first time since my appointment in January 2012 that I have needed to inform Parliament about a group of investigations from which other organisations can learn. This is a short report that sets out a fundamental principle of good complaint handling. I am laying this report before Parliament under section 10(4) of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 because these investigations provide simple, but important, lessons for all government organisations about remedying complaints, especially during a period of budgetary constraint.
The Ombudsman’s Principles set out what organisations should do to deliver good administration and how to act when things go wrong. Government organisations have signed up to those Principles, and they are recognised in HM Treasury’s guidance, Managing Public Money. One of the Principles is ‘Putting things right’. When government organisations make a mistake, they should try to put the person affected back in the position they would have been in if the mistake had not happened. This report looks at four complaints about the Planning Inspectorate’s decisions not to compensate individuals for mistakes that had caused these individuals to incur extra expense.
We upheld all four of these complaints, and asked the Planning Inspectorate to put things right for these complainants and for others affected by the decision. We are pleased to say that the Planning Inspectorate responded positively to our recommendations. They put things right for these complainants and also provided a financial remedy for 14 other people and organisations who had been wrongly refused a remedy. Importantly, they reviewed their guidance that explains how they will consider claims for financial redress in future.
This report sets out the complainants’ stories, our findings and recommendations to put things right and the learning points for the Planning Inspectorate and other government organisations. Dame Julie Mellor, DBE Parliamentary Ombudsman October 2012
