In his foreword to the States Complaints Board’s annual report, Chair Geoffrey Crill said his panel had seen several “incidents of poor performance” from Government departments when it came to handling grievances from the public.
2020 was “another exceptionally busy year” for the Panel with 21 new formal complaints received during the year and an additional 10 carried forward from 2019.
The Growth, Housing and Environment (GHE) department generated the most complaints with five.
Pictured: The Panel held three hearings during 2020.
The Panel held three hearings during 2020 at which all the complaints were upheld. In addition to those, 18 enquiries were made about complaints that were eventually not taken forward.
Mr Crill said the Panel recognised the “sterling work” done across Government departments and said they were pleased that in many cases they had demonstrated “best practice in complaint handling processes”, acknowledged mistakes, apologised and sought to prevent the complaints were not replicated in the future.
“We also take this opportunity to commend the number of officers in various departments who have been receptive to approaches from the Panel with a view to informal resolution of complaints,” he added. “Whilst appreciating the constraints on these officers, the Panel appreciates their willingness to understand the position of complainants, to consider the views expressed by Panel members and to revisit decisions as appropriate.”
However, the Panel’s Chair said he felt obliged to report “a perception by the Panel that it is not taken seriously by Ministers” and that its findings and the Administrative Decisions (Reviews) Law is not an “integral part of the island’s administration and core in the continual improvement of service delivery to islanders”.
“This is evidenced by the persistent failure of some departments to adhere to timetables for submissions, by challenges to the jurisdiction of the Board, and the failure of Ministers to give due consideration to a Board’s findings and/or recommendations,” he wrote.
Pictured: Ministers never attend hearings “to justify their decisions or support their officers”, Mr Crill said.
Mr Crill also noted that Ministers never attend “to justify their decisions or support their officers”, whilst Assistant Ministers have only attended in “exceptional cases”. “Our hearings are few and far between, but are one of the rare opportunities members of the public have to speak directly to those making decisions which affect them directly,” he said.
His comments were echoed by Deputy Carina Alves, the Chair of the Privileges and Procedures Committee – a panel of politicians responsible for overseeing the running of the States Assembly and making improvements.
In her foreword, she wrote that it had been “disappointing” to see several Departments “disrespect” the complaints process and seek to challenge the Panel’s jurisdiction.
“In some cases this simply took the form of delays in responding to the deadlines given for submissions, which required reminders from the Deputy Greffier,” she said. “However, in a couple of cases this resulted in approaches from the Law Officers’ Department, just days before the scheduled hearing dates, seeking to postpone or cancel and claiming that the matters were not within the Complaints Panel’s remit and the hearings should never have been arranged.”
The report noted that in the case of a complaint against the States Employment Board, the Deputy Greffier had to chase for a summary after several delays. While an independent review was due to be concluded by 30 October 2020, it was then pushed back to the end of December as some of the key people were absent.
Last year, the Chief Minister and other government officials were criticised for having acted in an “unhelpful” and “extremely unfair” way by refusing to engage in a complaints hearing at the “eleventh hour” – despite having had months to prepare.
They not only refused to attend the hearing but also to make any submission claiming the Board didn’t have jurisdiction over the matter. The incident prompted Mr Crill to call for “an ombudsman with effective power” to be appointed urgently.
Pictured: Deputy Carina Alves, the Chair of the Privileges and Procedures Committee.
Referring to the potential appointment, Deputy Alves said it was “imperative” for the role to have “sufficient powers”.
“I do not think the Ombudsman should be able to impose his or her own decision on Ministers, but the current situation whereby there can be an absolute rejection of the Board’s findings on the basis of jurisdiction, with no agreement to review the situation, despite the Board upholding the complaint and finding fault in the process followed, is wholly inappropriate and completely unfair to Islanders,” she said.
Mr Crill suggested that if Ministers gave “proper and non-defensive consideration” to the Panel’s findings, they could save a “considerable” amount of time and public expense, citing the decisions in relation to Amar Alwitry and the foreshore complaints as examples.
He went on to say it was “extremely disappointing” that no progress had made over some historical complaints in 2020, some of which were upheld several years ago.
“The Panel remains in contact with several complainants who continue to seek the redress recommended by Complaints Boards, ranging from compensation to a simple, but genuine, apology,” he said. That anyone should be waiting years for the resolution of their complaint, should be a matter of great concern to the Chief Minister, his Council of Ministers and to all States Members.”