The Public Administration Select Committee has described the Government’s proposals for the reform of public services as the most ambitious since the Second World War. It has also said that, unless the Government can rapidly develop and implement a comprehensive plan for cross-departmental reform in Whitehall, its wider ambitions for public service reform will fail.

So what needs to change? And what part can better complaint handling by government play in this transformation agenda?

First, it can help in improving the user’s experience of complaining about public services. As a result of recent initiatives by the Scottish and Welsh Governments, the users of devolved public services in Scotland and Wales now have the benefit of common complaint handling standards across public services. But, as this report illustrates, the current approach for responding to complaints about non-devolved public services, and public services in England, is disjointed and unsatisfactory, providing little clarity for the public about what they can expect.

The public bodies within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction are many and varied. The systems that they have in place for handling complaints will always need to depend on their own circumstances. Yet as the provision of public services becomes further decentralised, clear standards for complaint handling need to be established – standards that users and commissioners can reference in holding public service providers to account.

Secondly, better use must be made of the learning from complaints to drive improvements in public services. Why is it that government repeatedly fails to learn from getting things wrong? From the Ombudsman’s perspective, the answer is partly about governance, and partly about culture.

This report highlights the need to strengthen the corporate performance framework for government so that it has comprehensive, cross-departmental information about the volumes, nature and outcomes of complaints – and the associated costs. Without this type of information readily available, a key indicator of the quality of public services will be hidden from the view of national leaders. Government also needs regularly to ask itself the question: what are we doing differently as a result of what we’ve learnt from getting things wrong?

It is also clear that government needs to have in place better and more extensive mechanisms for sharing learning from complaints. But if continuous improvement of public services is a serious aim, the cultural barriers to reform will also need to be tackled. Government needs to examine how ingrained in the civil service psyche is a closed, reactive, defensive response to complaints; and how that can be changed into an open, proactive response that encourages real and sustained learning. We would welcome the opportunity to play a part in this. There is no shortage of material in the Ombudsman’s casebook to contribute to the civil service learning agenda.

The picture revealed in this report poses critical questions for Government as it takes forward its programme for reform. In the coming months, we hope to have the opportunity to engage with national leaders about these issues and to explore how a better approach – and a better attitude – to responding to complaints could contribute to public service reform.