Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): I welcome Ms Margaret Kelly, the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman (NIPSO), and Mr Sean Martin, the deputy ombudsman. You are both very welcome, yet again. Thank you for taking the time to appear before the Committee. I invite you to make a presentation.

Ms Margaret Kelly (Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman): Thank you and good morning, Chairman and Committee members. Thank you for taking the time to follow up on the consideration of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NIPSO and the report that the previous Committee undertook on the governance of NIPSO. I will begin by saying that NIPSO recognises and welcomes the scrutiny and challenge function that the Committee provides, as well as the support, which we consider to be a crucial element of maintaining public trust and confidence in our office as we deliver on the role that the Assembly has given us.

Committee members will have received our paper on the recommendations, but I will briefly outline where we have got to with some of them. We have made good progress on some, while others are still a work in progress. The report identified five recommendations to improve and update NIPSO's governance, a number of which fall under the Committee's remit rather than NIPSO's. We recognise that as being the beginning of the process for the Committee to consider the recommendations by looking at them in the current context and deciding how it might bring forward any of them.

I will now speak about the recommendations that are specifically for the Committee to consider. Recommendation 1 asks the Committee to consider the level of scrutiny and interchange that it has with NIPSO. Recommendation 2 asks the Committee to identify and, if appropriate, pursue legislative change.

More specifically, recommendation 22 asks the Committee to consider the local government ethical standards regime and, in particular, whether it thinks that there should be any change to how the office's adjudication function is delivered and to consider and update the MOU.

As the Committee will see, recommendation 20 and its proposals and recommendation 22 were specifically for NIPSO. I will address very briefly where we are at with the proposals under recommendation 20 and what we have taken forward. Recommendation 20 had seven proposals. Most have either been fully or partially implemented. I will deal with the ones on which I think that we have made significant progress, and then I will finish with the ones on which I think that there is still more to do.

Under proposal 2, we commissioned a contractor to undertake a review of NIPSO's audit and risk committee (ARC). That included looking at the make-up of the ARC, at how often it met and at the skills matrix. On the back of that, the contractor recommended that we increase the ARC's membership from three to four, all of whom are independent, and that we have an independent chair. We took that on board and have done it. Our independent chair has recently changed, because the chair of our ARC can serve for six years, and the person had done that. We now have a new independent chair, who comes from Wales. We currently have two independent members. We had three, but one has just resigned.

Recruiting our independent ARC members is not without its challenges. They may not serve on the board of a body that is in their jurisdiction to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. It is sometimes a little more difficult to find people who are not serving on any other board. When we recruited for our independent chair, we had to go out to competition once or twice in order to get someone with the appropriate level of independence and skill. I am happy to talk more about that.

Proposal 3 was about publishing our internal audit reports. In the intervening time since the report, we went out to tender and changed our internal auditors, which is right and appropriate, because we had had the previous ones for six years. We considered — we put this in the paper to the Committee — whether it would be better to publish the recommendations on that as part of our annual report or on our website. After consideration, we decided that it might be helpful to do both. The Committee will therefore find that last year's internal audit reports, their recommendations to us and our acceptance of them are now available on our website and will be in the next annual report and accounts. That proposal has therefore been dealt with.

Proposal 4 was to do with to do with NIPSO's current service standards process. We reviewed that, and, in the intervening period, we appointed an independent service standards reviewer, to whom someone goes if they are unhappy with the level of our service as opposed to being unhappy with our decision. They are two separate things. The service standards reviewer cannot look at our decision to determine whether there has been maladministration but can look at our level of service, such as whether someone complained about how one of our staff behaved. That proposal is now in place. It is helpful when we have people performing roles who are from outside the jurisdiction. We have someone who is based in England and has undertaken that role for a number of ombudsman offices.

Proposal 5 was that we undertake a customer satisfaction survey and a public awareness survey. As you will have seen, we undertook public awareness surveys in 2021 and 2024. We are currently out to tender for a new one. We undertook an external customer satisfaction survey in 2021. In 2023, we introduced a continuous customer satisfaction survey. We have the data on that, and Sean has more detail should the Committee want it. We have just gone out to tender for another external survey.

Proposal 6 was about the wider dissemination of NIPSO reports. In the intervening period, we have done quite a lot on that. We have published the vast majority of final reports, but we always speak to the public body and the complainant before we make a decision to publish once a report is finalised. That will be driven by things such as whether a child is involved. If a child is involved, and there is potential for identification, I may not publish that report. I may publish a summary of it, however. We make decisions on privacy and consideration bases after every final report is done. The majority are published, however, and the majority of public bodies are named. We publish final investigation reports, and we bring them to the attention of Committees. Members will know that we have given evidence to the Committee for Health and the Committee for Education and that we have had engagement with the Committee for Communities.

There are proposals on which we have made some progress, but not as much. Proposal 7 was that we consider participating in a peer review exercise. We explored that with the Ombudsman Association, of which I am chair, as the Committee will know, and the International Ombudsman Institute, but neither has a fully developed peer review process yet. We therefore continue to monitor that proposal. We did bring in some academic peer review through our own-initiative process, so we have done some elements, but there is not yet a clear process that we consider robust enough to be of benefit. We are members of the Ombudsman Association, so our membership gets revalidated every five years. There is quite a robust process involved.

Recommendation 19 was that NIPSO establish an advisory panel. We commissioned a contractor to review the issue of an advisory panel. We reviewed other ombudsman offices. We looked at whether they had an advisory panel and, if so, how it worked. The contractor provided us with a report that raised some issues about the role of an advisory panel versus the role of NIPSO's ARC. I consider NIPSO's ARC to have a clear role and to do a very good job of adding assurance to what we do. Concerns were also raised about what the costs and benefits of establishing an advisory panel would be if its role was not absolutely clear. We would therefore welcome further discussion with the Committee on whether that is something that we should progress.

Recommendation 21 was that we look at ways in which to increase and improve reporting arrangements. In the intervening period, we have done that. We lay our annual report and accounts and produce an ombudsman report, a Commissioner for Standards report and a Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Ombudsman report every year. We also produce own-initiative reports and follow-up reports on what action has been taken where there has been an own-initiative investigation. We have produced a number of overview reports and case digests. We have a plan to publish sectoral-based reports that will look at each sector in public services and its number of complaints. As complaint standards come on board, that will move forward. We have therefore progressed a lot. The Committee may want to know more about some of those areas, and there are some that require further discussion with the Committee, but I hope that that has provided a useful overview of where we are at. We are now happy to answer questions

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): Thank you very much, Margaret. Recommendation 22 states:

What are your thoughts on that recommendation?

Ms Kelly: As the Committee probably knows, the local government ethical standards function, which sits with NIPSO, is about whether a councillor may have breached the code of conduct. Sean and his team lead on such investigations. I will know how many allegations there are, and I will know our performance data on how quickly we are dealing with them and whether we are meeting our performance targets, but I will have no information whatsoever about what the allegations are, which councillors are involved or whether the investigation is ongoing. I will perhaps ask Sean to speak about that in a moment.

We therefore have an ethical wall. An allegation, once fully investigated, must meet the threshold for adjudication. Sean and his team will then make decisions. They will assess investigations and decide whether to close them or to agree alternative action. There will, however, be a small number of allegations — it probably averages four a year — that Sean and his team will think meet the threshold to be considered for adjudication.

They will then pass their report on to me. I will look at it and decide whether to accept that it meets the threshold for adjudication. If it does not, I will send it back. It does not happen very often that I send it back, but, on occasion in my five years in the role, I have decided that it did not meet the threshold and sent it back. If it does meet the threshold, however, an adjudication will be provided, and I will sit as commissioner or my assistant commissioner, Ian Gordon from Scotland, a former Deputy Chief Constable and a previous Standards Commissioner for Scotland, will sit in adjudication for me. To be frank, the breadth and spread of my role would not allow me to do even four in a year, because they are intense. A lot of evidence is involved, and a lot of sessions take place leading up to the adjudication, so it is important that we do not have delay.

When the report was done, we had delay and a backlog. We had delay on the investigation side, and, because there was a delay between the previous Public Services Ombudsman leaving and my taking up post, we also had a delay on the adjudication side. The backlog is now completely gone. There is no delay now, and we have also changed on the investigation side how we approach and deal with councillors.

What I will say to the Committee is that that function is currently within my jurisdiction. My view is that we deliver it well, efficiently and proportionately. The decision, however, on whether adjudication continues to sit with NIPSO is for the Committee to consider and for the Assembly to decide on. That is not my decision to take. When it is given to NIPSO as part of its role, we do it well. We did have work to do to improve it, and we have improved it, but it is not for me to say, where it should sit. It is for the Committee to decide as part of a legislative programme. I do not know whether that is helpful or unhelpful.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): OK. Thank you very much.

Mr Sean Martin (Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman): I will add to that. Legislative competence sits with the Department for Communities. The regime was set up by the Department as part of the reform of local government and reflects standards regimes in Scotland and Wales and the different mechanisms for dealing with standards. There was a recent consultation undertaken and publication produced of the UK Government's view on setting up a similar standards framework for England. Theirs is a bit more patchwork, but they are moving towards having a single standards framework for local government, similar to what is in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

On the investigations side, which falls to me, we have moved to a point at which investigations are done within the targets that we have set ourselves. They are now much more about communicating with a councillor, talking to them and helping them understand the process and how to cooperate with us so that their case can be dealt with much more speedily. We have achieved that, so hopefully the impact of being under investigation has been reduced as much as it can. That is not to say that there is not an impact, because there is, but we try to reduce it as much as we can, while still running a fair process.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): Thank you for that. I am sure that the Committee will discuss that topic.

Mr Mathison: My question is on the issue of local government standards. Is there somewhere where we can access the reporting of the target times and standards? Moreover, would the Committee be able to have sight of the feedback that you get from councillors who are under investigation? They are often under investigation for serious issues, and it is important that the public can have confidence in the process. It is also a very serious matter for the individual, so it is important for us to get a sense of how the process feels for those involved.

Ms Kelly: It absolutely is. My role as commissioner is to improve public confidence in standards in public life. That is a really important role, and it is important that someone holds that role. We carried out a survey of councillors and published a report. That was not done last year. It might have been the year before. We asked all councillors whether an allegation had been made against them, whether they had been investigated, whether they had been to adjudication and what they knew about the Northern Ireland Local Government Commissioner for Standards function.

We report in our annual report and also in an annual commissioner's report, both of which are published, on the number of complaints, our key performance indicators — Sean probably knows about them better than I do — and the number of adjudications. We then do a separate commissioner's report that distils that information. We do outreach and training with councils and councillors, so it looks at that as well.

We have also been developing video-based online training resources for councillors on the use of social media and on other things, such as article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Those resources are not out yet. They have taken us longer than it should have to develop, and that is because of the pressure and demand across the team, to be honest. I will send the Committee links to all of that. I do not know whether Sean has anything to add.

Mr Martin: We have two targets to meet on local government standards. One is to decide within four weeks whether we should investigate an allegation. We met that target in 97% of cases last year. The other is to complete the investigation within 40 weeks of a decision that a complaint about a councillor under the code is valid. The target is to achieve that in 60% of cases, and we did so in 68%. In this year, we are well above those percentages, with both targets close to 100%.

Ms Kelly: If, when something comes to us for adjudication, councillors cooperate well with it, the process can move along quickly, but it is really important that the process be fair and open and that people feel that they have the opportunity to be heard. There is an appeal route. If they are found to have breached the code, and there is a sanction, the councillor may appeal to the High Court. I do not have to hand the number of appeals that there have been, but I will certainly provide the Committee with that information. As yet — I always say that, because there is always the chance of a challenge — none of the decisions has been overturned. I will also provide the Committee with that information to help its consideration of the MOU.

The Chairperson (Mr Chambers): No other members have questions to ask, so it falls to me to thank you, Margaret and Sean, for attending. I once again place on record the Committee's appreciation for the work that you and your staff do.

Ms Kelly: Thank you.