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Annual Letter 2023/24

Dear Councillor Thomas

Role of PSOW

As you know, the role of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales is to consider
complaints about public services, to investigate alleged breaches of the councillor
Code of Conduct, to set standards for complaints handling by public bodies and to
drive improvement in complaints handling and learning from complaints. I also
undertake investigations into public services on my own initiative.

Purpose of letter

This letter is intended to provide an update on the work of my office, to share key
issues for local government in Wales and to highlight any particular issues for
your organisation, together with actions I would like your organisation to take.

Overview of 2023/24

This letter, as always, coincides with my Annual Report – “A New Chapter Unfolds”
– and comes at a time when public services continue to be in the spotlight, and
under considerable pressures. My office has seen another increase in the number
of people asking for our help – a 17% increase in overall contacts compared to the
previous year, with nearly 10,000 enquiries and complaints received. Our caseload
has increased substantially – by 37% – since 2019.

During 2023/24 we considered and closed more enquiries and complaints than we
ever have done before, and we reduced the average cost for each case and
investigation. We started the year with a focus on reducing our aging cases, those
over 12 months old, by 50% by the end of the year. These cases are often the most
complex and distressing for the people making the complaint. I am extremely
pleased to say we exceeded this target, reducing our aged investigations by over
70%. We are now well on track to meeting our objective to complete investigation of
complaints within 12 months.

Public Services Complaints and compliance with recommendations

In total 1,108 complaints about local authorities were made to us last year – broadly
the same number as the previous year. During this period, we intervened in
(upheld, settled or resolved at an early stage) 14% of local authority complaints – a
similar proportion to recent years.

We received 15 complaints about Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council in
2023/24 and closed 16 – some complaints were carried over from the previous year.
Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s intervention rate was 6%. Further
information on complaints about your organisation can be found in the appendices.
We made 1 recommendation to your council during the year. To ensure that our
investigations and reports drive improvement, we follow up compliance with the
recommendations agreed with your organisation. In 2023/24, 1 recommendation
was due, and this was complied with in the timescale agreed.

Recommendations and timescales for complying with recommendations are always
agreed with the public body concerned before being finalised, and we therefore
expect organisations to comply within the timescales agreed.

Our Code of Conduct work

My role is to investigate allegations that councillors have breached their Code of
Conduct. Where an investigation finds evidence to support the complaint on a
matter which is serious enough to require a referral in the public interest, these
cases are referred either to the local Standards Committee or to the Adjudication
Panel for Wales for consideration.

In 2023/24, we received 16% more Code of Conduct complaints than the previous
year, relating to both Principal Councils and Town and Community Councils. My
office made 21 referrals – to Standards Committees or the Adjudication Panel for
Wales, an increase from 12 the previous year.

I am grateful to your Monitoring Officer for their positive engagement with my office
over the last year. We will continue to engage with them on matters relating to the
ethical standards framework, including Local Resolution Procedures this year.

Independent Review

As you will be aware, I became aware of inappropriate comments, of a political
nature, made by a member of my staff via social media. These comments were
widely reported in the media. The member of staff in question was suspended and
subsequently resigned. However, the comments prompted questions about my
office’s work on councillor Code of Conduct cases.

In view of the seriousness of the matter, I commissioned Dr Melissa McCullough to
conduct an independent review of our Code of Conduct work, and I have published
the full Terms of Reference for that review. I and my staff are engaging closely with
the Monitoring Officer Group and the National Forum for Standards Committee Chairs in relation to this matter. I will be publishing Dr McCullough’s final report on
completion of the review and sharing it with the Senedd’s Finance Committee this
Autumn.

Supporting improvement of public services

We continued our work on supporting improvement in public services last year and
worked on our second wider Own Initiative investigation. The investigation includes
4 local authorities and considers carers’ needs assessments. I am grateful to the
investigated authorities for their co-operation and candour throughout the year, and
we look forward to sharing our finalised report this Autumn. This will make
recommendations to the investigated authorities and will ask all local authorities
across Wales to make similar improvements.

We have continued our work on complaints handling standards for public bodies in
Wales and now have 56 public bodies following our model complaints handling
policy. These public bodies account for around 85% of the complaints we receive.
We have continued our work to publish complaints statistics, gathered from public
bodies, with data published twice a year.

We continued our work to publish complaints statistics into a third year, with data
now published twice a year. This data allows us to see information with greater
context – for example, last year 17% of complaints made to Blaenau Gwent
County Borough Council’s went on to be referred to PSOW.

Action we would like your organisation to take

Further to this letter can I ask that your Council takes the following actions:

• Present my Annual Letter to the Cabinet and to the Governance and
  Audit Committee at the next available opportunity and notify me of when
  these meetings will take place.
• Consider the data in this letter, alongside your own data, to understand more
  about your performance on complaints, including any patterns or trends and
  your organisation’s compliance with recommendations made by my office.
• Inform me of the outcome of the Council’s considerations and proposed
  actions on the above matters at the earliest opportunity.

I would like to thank you, and your officers, for your continued openness and
engagement with my office. Our information shows that local authorities are looking
into more complaints than ever before and are using information from complaints to
deliver better outcomes for the people of Wales.

Yours sincerely,
Michelle Morris
Public Services Ombudsman

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