Agenda item

To consider a report by the Monitoring Officer (copy attached) on the 2014/15 Annual Report of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (the Ombudsman).

A copy of a report by the Monitoring Officer (MO), on the 2014/15 Annual Report of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales (OM), had been circulated previously.

The DMO explained that the OM published an annual report on the activities of the office of the OM in dealing with complaints against public bodies in Wales.  The two main roles of his office included the investigation of complaints of maladministration by public bodies, and complaints relating to alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct by Elected Members of Unitary, City, Town and Community Councils.  The OM’s Annual Report entitled ‘Making Complaints Serve Wales’ had been included as Appendix 1.

Details of the workloads and statistics of the OM’s office, and proposed changes to the legislation governing the powers, had been incorporated in the report.  The OM categorised Code of Conduct complaints and an analysis of complaints by category had been provided.  The number of cases referred to either a Standards Committee or the Adjudication Panel for Wales had risen slightly in 2013/14, but was still considerably lower than the number of cases referred in 2012/13.  The DMO made specific reference to Page 43 of the report, and outlined the percentages relating to the Nature of Code of Conduct Complaints in 2014/15.

In view of the low level of complaints received from Councillors about their colleagues, the OM’s office had reviewed its practice and would be taking a firmer line on such matters in future by referring them back to MO’s for local resolution.

Annex C to the OM’s report contained a breakdown of cases closed in 2014/15 by Local Authority.  Of the 132 closed cases relating to unitary Authorities 2 related to Denbighshire County Councillors, both of which were closed after initial consideration without the need for an investigation.  This represented a reduction from the 4 complaints closed in the previous year all of which had been withdrawn or closed after initial consideration.  A breakdown of the 105 closed cases relating to City, Town or Community Councils, shows, in relation to Denbighshire, that there were three complaints about members of such Councils in Denbighshire.  The OM had also reported on the performance of the Ombudsman’s office in terms of the time taken to consider Code of Conduct complaints.  Details of the two targets set by the OM in respect of timescales was provided in the report.

The OM had announced that the Code of Conduct Casebook introduced on a biannual basis would be produced on a quarterly basis in 2015/16, however, due to the low number of cases available in quarterly editions, a commentary on lessons learnt would be produced on an annual end of year basis only.  The OM referred to the revised guidance issued during the year and the new public interest test, both having been previously reported to the Committee.

During the ensuing discussion the Chair highlighted the following issues:-

·                 He expressed his gratitude and attributed the decrease in the number of complaints recorded, which had been worthy of Standards Committee investigation, to the positive and hard work undertaken by the Monitoring Officer and the Deputy Monitoring Officer in organising training events.

·                 Expressed concern regarding the PSOW’s limited resources and financial constraints, which had resulted in a conscious decision to not investigate low level matters.  Reference was made to the stringent Public Interest Test which had been applied, the manner in which minor disputes had been resolved and the application of information ascertained from case study precedents.

Following further discussion, it was:-

RESOLVED –that the Standards Committee receive and note the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales’ Annual Report 2014/15.