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Transcript of questioning by Grant Shapps MP:

Q1  Grant Shapps:  It seems to me, apart from the dozen people sitting behind you, probably the people who work in your office, and those of us on this Committee, there is barely anyone else out there who is really interested in your work, perhaps apart also from the people you resolve complaints for.  The Government does not really care one way or the other what you are saying, does it?

Ms Abraham:  I would go back to the 3,649 other cases that we investigated in the last financial year.

Q2  Grant Shapps:  Let us include them but I mean the Government.

Ms Abraham:  That is not how it feels from where I am sitting.  If we look at tax credits, it seems to me that that was a report that caused quite a stir at the time and in which the Committee took a very welcome, detailed interest.  As a result of that report and a continuing dialogue with the Revenue about the recommendations in that report, I think we have worked with the Revenue to help improve the delivery of tax credits for a lot of people.  If I look at what we have done on long term funding for continuing care for elderly and disabled people, that is a major area of work for the office over the last three years which has had a huge effect in relation to those people but also has raised the standard of decision making in the NHS in relation to continuing care decisions.  I have not had to fight to get the Department of Health and the NHS to listen to me on those issues.  After some initial to-ing and fro-ing, the dialogue with the Revenue has been a good one.  The dialogue with the Home Office on the Victims’ Code has been a good one, so I do not think that is the case.

Q3  Grant Shapps:  You have described in one place diversionary, delaying tactics by the Government and you said in another that the Government has responded to a report but it just was not the one that you happened to write.  Somewhere else you say they ignored your recommendations and you issued two 10(3)s, even though they are extremely rare in the history of the Ombudsman, and yet despite all of that you are telling this Committee that the Government is listening to the Ombudsman.

Ms Abraham:  I think I am saying it is listening most of the time.  There are cases that come along from time to time that are difficult, that have a big price tag, that are inevitably going to be difficult.  The pensions report is one of them.  The Ministry of Defence debt of honour report is a different creature.  It would be very interesting to see when Mr Watkins’s internal inquiry into how the Ministry of Defence got itself into this situation is available later this year.  Out of that I hope will come some very significant learning for the department and perhaps for departments generally about how not to respond to complaints.  The way the Minister has responded in that situation with a very clear determination to get to the bottom of this and put it right - he said that to me on a number of occasions - is a very good example of how complaint handling should be done, albeit somewhat late in the day.  I always say that I do not expect people never to go wrong; I judge people by what they do in putting things right.  The pensions report is big and difficult.  I have been disappointed by the Government response, not so much by the fact of it but by the nature of it and partly the fact of it, but I think it is exceptional and extraordinary.  It may just be that 10(3)s come along in clusters like these things do sometimes.

Q4  Grant Shapps:  Let us talk about your workload because I suppose it is a different indication of how busy you are as an Ombudsman.  You mention 3,649 cases from last year.  I also note in your report and when you were last in front of us you were looking for a reduction in the number of cases that you were handling.  You can either do that by ramping up the number of staff you have working on cases or by the moves that you have now taken which I suggest are about preventing cases getting into your file in the first place.  For example, the most recent circulation we have had is that you will kick back tax credit cases to HM Revenue and Customs.  It is easy to solve your problem with case work if you close yourself down, is it not?

Ms Abraham:  I have said before that my long term aim is to put myself out of business but there is no sign of that yet.  You are right.  There are a number of ways in which you can reduce the case load.  I am pleased to say that, although we have not done quite as well as I had hoped when I talked to the Committee in October, we have managed to get a substantial reduction in the cases in hand at the end of this financial year.  All the details of that will come in my annual report to be published in July.  We did that even though it went up before it came down.  There is a continuing care factor in here which makes it difficult to see these figures in a simple way.  In relation to the continuing care work we have looked at thousands of cases since that report was published in February 2003.  I believe that it is not the job of my office to be the volume complaint handler for the government and the NHS.  Therefore, in the same way as we are having discussions with the Health Care Commission and the Department of Health about this and similarly with the Tax Credits Office, the right place for these disputes and complaints to be resolved is in the front line, quickly, to put things right.

Q5  Grant Shapps:  We would all accept that but I put it to you in an area of interest for me, tax credits, that that is not really happening.  What is happening is that, now you have closed down yourself as an opportunity to complain about them, instead the complainants go directly back to HMRC.  I see no evidence whatsoever that they are handling these cases, in my own constituency’s case, any better than they were on 20 October when you came to see us last.  In fact, the Public Accounts Committee have said that £2.2 billion was the latest reported over payment which you will no doubt say is before the period that you were talking about.  Nonetheless, when you were last here, I tried to suggest to you the system was in disarray.  I suggest to you now it remains in disarray.  The only difference is that you no longer wish to take on that workload because it rightly should be handled by the department, but it does not mean that the outcome is any better for anybody, does it?

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Promoted by Amanda Perkins on behalf of Grant Shapps, both of Maynard House, The Common, Hatfield, AL10 0NF