“Exhausted is how most complainants must feel after months of waiting for closure"

Friday 13 November 2020

The panel tasked with hearing public grievances with the government has voiced “real concerns” about the Health Department’s “inefficient” internal complaints practices.

Writing in the States Complaints Board's (SCB) recently published 2019 Annual Report, Chairman Geoffrey Crill called out the department specifically for “delays" and “poor communication.”

The department had the most new complaints dealt with by the Panel in 2019, with eight out of a total of 23.

In his introduction to the report, Mr Crill said: “The Panel has real concerns that the Health Department’s current internal complaints procedures prolong matters for a very long time before they are exhausted.

“Exhausted is indeed the appropriate word as that is how most complainants must feel after months of waiting for some form of closure. 

“Extended ‘reviews’ over many months, often without regular communication to assure the complainant that they have not been forgotten, is both inappropriate, inefficient, and in no party’s interest when handling a complaint, especially when delays and poor communication are often base elements of the initial complaint.”

Pictured: The Complaints Board handled 23 new complaints in 2019. 

A particularly notable complaint about the department from 2018 and carried over into 2019 was featured in the report, where the Board slammed the department’s behaviour as “at best extremely discourteous, and at worst cruel and potentially negligent.”

Outside the Health Department, issues Mr Crill sought to highlight in the report included a call to re-address the Environment Department’s noise complaint policy, saying that the current ‘test’ to report a noise complaint is “extremely high” with “limited redress.” Last month, the issue was brought up in a hearing regarding St. Peter’s Technical Park. 

More broadly, he noted a “definite deterioration in some Departments’ response times to complaints," ending his note with a plea for departments to consider more timely apologies to complainants. 

Mr Crill did leave room for praise of certain departments though, citing the “proactive” efforts of Education's Student Finance Team and the “extremely constructive” Customer and Local Services. Infrastructure and Planning officers were also highlighted for meeting with complainants and giving explanations informally.

Across 2019, the Panel addressed 23 new formal complaints, the highest since the panel began in 1982. Out of those, seven were closed, 13 were left ongoing, six resolved through Complaints Panel involvement, and three given a hearing.

The report follows a defence against changing the Complaints Panel to an independent Public Service Ombudsman from Privileges and Procedures Committee Chair, Deputy Russell Labey. 

Pictured: Deputy Russell Labey defended the the Complaints Panel against suggestions of a move to an Ombudsman. 

In a letter to Deputy Rob Ward, whose Scrutiny Panel is examining redress processes in Jersey, Deputy Labey said: “No public sector Ombudsman in the UK can make binding findings and there is no logical reason to expect that Ministers would be more responsive to the findings of an Ombudsman than they are at present to the findings of Boards.”

He later added: “PPC and the Complaints Panel welcomes the introduction of a consistent template for complaint handling across the Government of Jersey. 

“We feel that it would be advisable to see how this system impacts, not just on the way in which complaints are handled, but also the number which are escalated to the Complaints Panel for further review, before an Ombudsman’s office is established.” 

The move to an Ombudsman was voted for in principle by States members in 2018, and in the last two years, various consultations and debates have been had over the specific role and remit it would have compared to the Complaints Board.

However, the Legislation Advisory Panel (LAP) – a group tasked with considering legislation matters that do not fall under the responsibility of a particular Minister – decided this year not to support that view.

In this week's vote of no confidence debate, Education Minister Senator Tracey Vallois used her speech to call for the creation of an ombudsman to be put back on the agenda.