Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): I welcome Margaret Kelly, the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman (NIPSO); Sean Martin, the acting deputy ombudsman; and Kirsty McCool, director of governance and support services in that office. You are all very welcome this morning. I invite you to make any opening comments that you wish to before we move to questions.

Ms Margaret Kelly (Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman): Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the Committee for asking us back. We do not have a lot of comments to make, and we are happy to answer questions.

We have had a quick look at the DOF response to our budget. We received that just this morning. We have had a little look at it, and I note that DOF raised some issues. We are, of course, happy to answer Committee questions on those. However, I also note and welcome DOF's overall support for our budget as presented to the Committee, its recognition of the essential services that the office provides to the public and to public bodies and its further recognition of the fact that public services are under significant pressure, meaning that the role of the office — unfortunately, some might say — becomes even more important. While DOF has raised a number of issues that, I am sure, the Committee will ask me about, overall, I have to say that I welcome the Department's support for the budget as presented.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): At the conclusion of the questions, Margaret, I will invite you to make further comment on the letter, if you so wish.

At the last evidence session, you touched on the emotional impact that some of your investigations have on you and your staff. Have you included further planned support or assistance for staff in the budget submission? Is there anything further that you could do to support your investigators?

Mr Sean Martin (Office of the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman): We are taking forward a number of pieces of work. As part of the broader public service family, we have access to the services that the Civil Service has access to. Kirsty can probably name the specific services, but staff can phone and seek support. Counselling is also available. In addition, we are working with colleague ombudsmen on putting bespoke arrangements in place for our staff in order to recognise the vicarious trauma that they suffer. Some of that involves giving them a little time afterwards and talking it through with them to help them to deal with the trauma. We have made provision in the budget for sufficient support to be available to our staff to help them deal with the vicarious trauma that they experience from the work that we do.

Ms Kelly: Just to add to that, we have specifically started to run a programme on trauma-informed practice for our staff to help them deal with the trauma. A senior member of staff from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman runs that. To be honest, the cost of doing that is minimal, and ombudsman offices across the UK are good at providing one another with that kind of access to training and support without necessarily charging one another. There is not a huge budgetary cost to it, but there is a programme in place.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): The reduction in the backlog of determining investigations into local councillors is welcome. How will your budget submission help to maintain that shorter waiting time?

Mr Martin: The investigation side of that jurisdiction falls to me. We have made provision in the budget for sufficient resources for that. Actually, we have had quite an upturn in the number of referrals to us this year, and we are just about to up the number of staff. We have enough cover in the arrangement with the Department of Finance to allow us, through a technical transfer mechanism, to ask for more money where we need it so that we can up the number of staff.

At the start of each year, we look forward and think, "How many cases will be brought to us? Do we have enough members of staff to deal with those?". If, during the year, that number goes up, we can call on additional resources to up the number of staff, whether that means moving people internally or going external to bring in additional resources. We are very focused on keeping the position that we have got to on that. I am pleased to report to the Committee that we have continued to do that throughout this year, and we expect to keep that position where the Committee expects it to be and to get those investigations completed as quickly as we can.

Ms Kelly: That has been about not only having the staff and the resources but the approach. It is particularly important that that is fair and proportionate. A breach of the code is not meant to be a punitive response; it is about improving learning. That is another thing that Sean and the investigation team have done. All the regulators — it is, in effect, a regulatory role — across the UK have moved to an enabling approach. That means that, when we get a complaint, we reach out not only to the complainant but to the councillor by phone and seek to get councillors to engage more proactively with the office.

The thresholds are still there. The investigation team looks at that — it is, obviously, not something that I look at — but the overall approach is about being fair and proportionate and encouraging learning so that councillors do not inadvertently breach the code. That has also been part of the reason why we have seen that. It has been slightly more challenging this year because there has been that increase, but I hope that there has been some movement in people's experience of the process, and we continue to engage with all stakeholders who make complaints under the code to ensure that we understand what that experience is.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): I fully welcome that, because it is also a worrying time for those who have had complaints made against them.

I will open up to members now.

Ms Forsythe: Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for coming to speak to us on the matter. Since our last meeting, at least a couple of high-profile reports have come out. That really emphasises the importance of your office's work. From watching some of the coverage of those reports, I think that they suggest improvements and just a sense of closure for some of those families. The feedback and the impact of your work are so important.

You noted in the previous meeting that over half the cases that come to you are health-related. How will the implementation of the complaints-handling procedure in the health and social care trusts impact on your work and the budget in future years?

Mr Martin: We are heavily engaged with the health service in the complaints standards approach that we take. We have been engaging with the trusts for a long time, and we are now reaching out to the wider parts of the health service — for example, to GPs, care homes and so on — to make sure that everybody is aware of what we are trying to achieve. We are looking for a culture change. Margaret and I and another colleague are attending the Health Committee tomorrow, and one of the issues that we will, no doubt, address is the need for candour. Our experience is that, if you get the culture around complaints right and are really open with people from the start, you save a huge amount of resource. Where people lose trust is the issue, and public trust is one of the key things that we drew attention to in last year's annual report. In order to build that trust, you need to be open.

The work on the complaints standards is twofold. One is about the procedure, which has two stages of five and 20 days, and trying to speed that up. The real focus is on a culture change on openness, and that will take some time. Work is going on with the Department of Health on an open framework — as members who are on the Health Committee will know, consultations on that are due — and on issues around a statutory duty of candour for organisations and individuals. Our focus is on being open. Things will go wrong, and, if you are open with people, it is surprising how accepting they are, if that openness comes early in a complaints process. However, if it has to be dragged out, it takes huge resource for the organisation and for us and creates huge trauma. It causes huge trauma, which we cannot forget about, for the people who bring their complaints.

We are taking a twin-track approach in which we are looking to improve the procedure and make it more timely while encouraging a move to a much more open and just culture. That includes supporting staff and enabling them to be open. Some of the work that the Department of Health has done on being open suggests that staff want to be open but do not feel able to. It is really important that we put mechanisms in place to enable them to be open where things have gone wrong and to provide proper answers.

Ms Forsythe: Your bid for budget has a large increase at 11%. You have outlined the pressures on staff, the pay review and the difficulty with staff turnover, so we can see what has driven that increase. In light of the increase in National Insurance contributions announced in the autumn Budget statement, have you had a chance to factor in how much extra there would be in the overall bid?

Mr Martin: The National Insurance changes will have an impact on us of £60,000 in monetary terms. There has been some communication, I believe, back and forward with Department of Finance officials. If the broad public-sector approach is that that money will be given to people as a top-up to their budget, we would seek it, but, if it is to be absorbed, we, like everyone else, would absorb it. We are not making a specific ask for that to be added to our budget at this point; we are content to progress on the basis that we will do whatever everybody else does in the climate that we are in, in which there is additional pressure on the public sector across the board.

Ms Forsythe: Absolutely. The Finance Minister referenced in her letter this morning that, on consideration, a resubmission of the bid was probably needed to address those procedures.

Mr Mathison: I will follow on from that with a question on pay. The Finance Minister referenced the pay and grading review in her letter. Can you give us an idea of where the approval process sits and of what the process for that would be? The Minister was clear that it has not yet been approved. She raised the implications of its being approved, but I would be interested to know what the impact of its not being approved would be on your ability to recruit and retain staff.

Ms Kelly: There is sometimes a little bit of misunderstanding and lack of clarity about the office and where it sits. In terms of its independence, the office is not an arm's-length public body of any particular Department, and that includes the Department of Finance. We sit independently of Departments. In fact, it is by you, the Committee, that I am scrutinised and that I come to for approval.

Last year, I came before the Committee and set out my difficulties, and the Committee provided me with funding to go away and look at. Now, having come back to the Committee and said, "OK, Committee, we have looked at that, and here are the options for me if I am going to address my really quite serious retention issues", approval for me sits with the Committee. I have not given you the detail of that process, because we have not shared that detail with staff. If the Committee were to require a closed session for a further briefing on that, we would be happy to give one.

The approval for all that is in my budget sits with that mechanism. I understand that that can sometimes be a little unclear, given that the Department of Finance looks over it all, but the Committee scrutinises me, and I am an officer of the Assembly who is, effectively, appointed by the Assembly.

Mr Mathison: Whether intentionally or not, the letter reads as if the Finance Minister was expecting to provide that approval.

Ms Kelly: Yes, there is some misunderstanding there.

Mr Mathison: That is important clarification to have on the record.

Mr Martin: The Clerk could advise on the Committee's view on that, but our understanding is that the mechanism for approval of the budget sits with the Committee.

The Senior Assistant Assembly Clerk: Chair, if you will allow me to come in, I will say that the Committee approves the budget for NIPSO and, therefore, everything that is in it. In the last budget, that included options for a pay and grading review, which the Committee approved, so the outworkings of that review will come into this financial year.

Mr Mathison: That is helpful. We can discuss actions arising from this briefing; some of those may relate to that.

Mr Blair: Staff levels and retaining people in post have been mentioned. Is there a timeline for appointments to the five posts mentioned in the submission? If so, how does that fit with this financial year compared with the year ahead and the proposed budget? Are any plans in place to try to improve the situation with retaining staff?

Mr Martin: We expect to advertise those roles as soon as we have budget approval so that people are in post for the start of the new year, because the work is there for them. Even since we reported to the Committee previously, the number of complaints has continued to rise, so we have great need for those staff.

Without getting into too much detail on the pay and grading review and how it will help us with retention, one of the things that it has done is extend some of our scales. There has been an uplift in salary in particular key posts. We hope that that will keep people. The Civil Service salary scales are now very short, and people do not feel that they are progressing, whereas the proposals before us extend some of those scales. That will be beneficial. We hope that the increase in salary in some key roles and the lengthening of scales will add to retention and take down our overall staff turnover.

Ms Kelly: We do significant staff engagement. As I said last time, I have an excellent staff team. Our engagement score is 83%. That compares with 54% for the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) overall. Staff have been clear with us that the staff who are going are doing so primarily for reasons of financial uplift and, in some cases, career progression. I am hopeful that, if we address the issue, we will settle down for a while.

Mr Blair: Thank you, Margaret.

Ms Ferguson: I have just one question. Will you tell us more about the impact that the own-initiative investigations piece has on your overall budget requirements?

Mr Martin: Our own-initiative team has five staff; it makes up less than 10% of our staff. Kirsty could probably tell us what it is in budgetary terms exactly, but it is a huge amount of our resource. We have the option internally to reallocate those to deal with pressures elsewhere.

There is a difficult balance to strike in the own-initiative investigations between the bigger systemic issues and trying to address them when you are faced with an increasing workload. Thus far, we have been able to maintain the resource in our own-initiative function, and we would like to continue to do so.

We are working on a number of larger areas of work that, we think, would be beneficial to the Assembly, as they are on issues that the public face around public services. I will not go into too much detail, because we have not announced them, but we would like to maintain that level of resource. That is more proactive work rather than being reactive to complaints, though I have to say that a lot of the issues that we look at come in through our complaints or from people who come to us and ask if we can take forward an own-initiative investigation.

We could come back to you on the exact budgetary terms, but there is a team of five.

Ms Ferguson: Thank you for that. It is critical. A lot of your work is reactive, and we need to be proactive, so it is good to hear that the staff complement of at least five will be sustained.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): Thank you very much for attending this morning. If you want to add anything further before you leave or if you wish to make further comment on the letter that we received this morning, please do so.

Ms Kelly: There is one other issue in the letter that it might be helpful to pick up. The Finance Minister seemed to raise a concern about the potential pay and regrading review having an impact on some other staff groups. I reassure the Committee that, in many respects, my staff grouping is unique, and, while we looked at other regulators in Northern Ireland, such as the Utility Regulator and the water regulator, all of whom are paid significantly more, we also benchmarked against the other ombudsman offices across the UK.

Pay and regrading in my office, as a stand-alone office, does not have an impact across the Civil Service; in fact, it might have been a little different if I had moved everybody to a higher Civil Service grade, but there is not an issue with doing it this way. It does not have a repercussive impact, which is something that, I know, the Minister raised.

Other than that, I do not know whether anybody else has anything that they want to add. I thank the Committee. We have had an opportunity to set out the issues that the office deals with, and I thank you for the scrutiny and consideration that you have given it.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): Thank you for the service that you provide to the public. Thank you very much indeed.

Ms Kelly: Thank you.