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Imagine if you or a member of your family were arrested, handcuffed and detained in a police cell overnight. It is not until the next day, after you have been handcuffed to a police officer, driven to court and held in a holding cell, that it is discovered you were arrested because of a mistake by a public body. How might you feel?
As shocking as it sounds, this is exactly what happened to Miss D when HM Courts Service (HMCS) – the body responsible for delivering justice effectively and efficiently to the public – failed to act on a request to withdraw a warrant for her arrest. Even worse, when Miss D complained about her ‘unnecessary, awful and embarrassing’ experience, HMCS failed to apologise, denied any wrongdoing, and even tried to argue that she bore some responsibility for her predicament. Needless to say, I took an extremely dim view of HMCS’s handling of Miss D’s case.
In a perfect world, mistakes would never happen but, given that they do, it is how public bodies react when mistakes occur that interests me most. Small mistakes have the potential for far-reaching and unforeseen consequences, and the failure to remedy mistakes quickly and properly can make them considerably worse. Failure to learn from mistakes can lead to them being repeated. I have produced this Digest to illustrate how small mistakes made by large public bodies can have a disproportionate impact on those they are attempting to serve, and on the public purse. I believe valuable lessons can be drawn from this small sample of our work: 11 cases which illustrate how things went wrong; how the original mistakes might have been avoided; and how they could, usually quite easily, have been put right sooner. The cases come from a range of public bodies and all demonstrate how things might have been handled differently if the public body had borne the Principles of Good Administration, Principles of Good Complaint Handling and Principles for Remedy in mind when delivering their service.
‘Seeking continuous improvement’ is one of the six Principles. I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of bodies learning from complaints and using this learning to improve their services and performance. I hope that each time I investigate a complaint and report back to the body on what I have found, they will reflect on the learning and, where appropriate, make the changes necessary to avoid a repetition. In any case, I will continue to engage with them, and other bodies in my jurisdiction, to drive improvements in public services.
As I have observed on previous occasions, many of the complaints that arrive in my Office should have been resolved without needing my intervention.
I frequently observe a failure of public bodies to put themselves ‘in the shoes’ of their customers. All too often I see cases where the body complained about did not take the trouble to find out or, having asked the question, failed to grasp fully what it was like for the person on the receiving end of their mistake. This lack of care, attention to detail and timeliness of action is graphically illustrated throughout the Digest but one case is particularly striking.
When Child Support Agency (the Agency) staff realised that they had wrongly identified Mr U as a non-resident parent and then failed to take all the necessary action to correct that mistake, they laid the way for a far greater problem. Four years later, by which time Mr U’s marriage was falling apart and his relationship with his children was under strain, the Agency finally admitted their error and attempted – very half-heartedly – to put it right; that was too late for Mr and Mrs U and their children. While the details of this particular case are unusual and the consequences have been especially traumatic, it is not the only one we have seen where the consequences of a small error have been devastating for the individual on the receiving end. Nor is it the only one where the body has shown a complete failure of imagination when it has come to ‘Putting things right’.
Staff need the correct equipment, guidance and embedded procedures to do their jobs properly; without that, even simple things can go badly awry. If the UK Border Agency (the Border Agency) had made it clear to staff that they should thoroughly search all records, including archived paper files, when asked if the Home Office had granted someone leave to remain in the UK, Mr P, a legitimate long-term resident of the UK, would not have suffered the ignominy of being threatened with removal from the country. Nor would he have missed two close family members’ funerals and been unable to visit his sick mother. It took three years, considerable expense to the taxpayer, and incalculable heartache, worry and distress for Mr P and his family until this issue was resolved. How was it resolved? The Border Agency finally got round to checking his paper file. A costly mistake that was easily avoidable.
I have identified three clear themes for this Digest:
- Being careless with information
- Delay
- Poor complaint handling.
The case of Miss N highlights the necessity for public bodies to provide a service which handles and processes information properly and appropriately, and respects the privacy of personal and confidential information. The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) inadvertently disclosed Miss N’s address to her ex-husband, against her express wishes. Miss N felt compelled to move house, incurred unnecessary expense and suffered severe stress and anxiety as a result; consequences that would have been completely unanticipated when the disclosure was made. It should not have been necessary for me to intervene before CAFCASS put that right.
A complaint that is not resolved quickly and effectively has a habit of becoming unmanageable; wasting public money, time and effort, as well as causing all kinds of distress for the citizen. The case of Mrs Q, a war widow, starkly illustrates how a delay in resolving a complaint can impact on the public purse and on the individual. If the Department of Social Security (now the Department for Work and Pensions – DWP) had acted correctly in 1987, Mrs Q would not have had to manage without her war widow’s pension for almost seven years. It took a further twelve years for Mrs Q to receive all the money she was entitled to as a result of her late husband’s service in the Merchant Navy. During those twelve years she endured frustration, stress and inconvenience, all of which could have been avoided if the Department had provided her with the right information at the right time. I do not consider any member of the public should have to suffer in that way. Once we had resolved her complaint, Mrs Q told us that she was ‘so glad it is almost at an end, and I feel like a cloud has been lifted after all these years’. It is disappointing that the Department did not manage to lift that cloud sooner.
As I outline in Principles of Good Complaint Handling, prompt and efficient complaint handling can save public bodies time and money, by preventing a complaint from escalating unnecessarily. When the Border Agency wrongly refused Ms A’s application for indefinite leave to remain in the UK, they compounded their error by telling her employers that they were acting illegally by continuing to employ her. Ms A was left with no income for more than two months. The Border Agency then ‘lost’ Ms A’s letter of complaint, and later refused to accept responsibility for their incorrect decision or for the consequences which flowed from it. Putting all that right took time and money. The Border Agency agreed to review their guidance to try to avoid this situation recurring. I hope that that may mean that others do not suffer the same fate as Ms A, and that the Border Agency have learnt from this sorry episode.
While righting individual wrongs is at the core of our work, my Office also aims to deliver a wider public benefit. None of us wants to see a repeat of failure; either on a grand or a small scale. I consider that publishing digests such as this one goes some way to reinforcing the message that an open and accountable public service, aiming to ‘get it right’, led by diligent and customer focused management, is the best way to ensure a first class service for all. I hope that public bodies – those cited in this Digest and those which are not – take the opportunity to reflect and learn from the cases described in the following pages.
Ann Abraham
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
November 2009
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