First Contact Interest Group

Meeting Number:18

Date:20th May 2016

Location:Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, 4 Melville Street, Edinburgh

Attendees:

Name / Office/Scheme
Aitken, Debra / The Property Ombudsman
Allbon, Dan / Public Service Ombudsman for Wales
Buckley, Jonathan (Secretary) / Local Government Ombudsman
Earps, Tony / Ombudsman Services
Edwards, Ian / Scottish Legal Complaints Service
Fulham, Emily / Independent Case Examiner
Galligan, Donal / Ombudsman Association
Hendry, Nicola / Police Investigations & Review Commissioner
Jack, Alison / Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
Jones, Laura / Independent Police Complaints Commission
McCue, Jane / Pensions Ombudsman
Neill, Carol (Chair) / Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
Sarao, Mel / Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Shepherd, Rowena / Criminal Records Bureau
Smith, Paul / Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
Tambourini, Clare / Independent Case Examiner
White, Jo / Adjudicators Office

Notes:

  1. Welcome to members and introductions

Niki Maclean, SPSO Director welcomed everyone to the offices of the SPSO.

Carol Neill welcomed members of the Interest Group for its 18th meeting and, in particular new members of the Group and guest speakers.

Carol advised that future meetings will continue to be twice a year and the aim is to hold one meeting at a London location and one outside of London.

The London location for later this year is not confirmed. However, the meeting in Spring 2017 is currently planned to be held at PHSO, Manchester. Suggestions for locations and offers to host are welcome.

  1. Notes of previous meeting

Notes of the previous meeting, held on 27th November 2015, at the Pensions Ombudsman, London were agreed as an accurate record. There were no matters arising.

  1. SPSO Social Welfare Fund Complaints and how SPSO have developed frontline service for a the new jurisdiction – Paul Smith and Alison Jack, SPSO

Paul and Alison provided an overview of how SPSO have set up a new team to deal with complaints regarding their new jurisdiction concerningthe Social Welfare Fund.

The Scottish Welfare Fund is delivered by Council’s on behalf of the Scottish Government and provides a safety net for vulnerable people on a low income. From April 2016, the SPSO now provides an independent review of Council decisions regarding Crisis Grants and Community Care Grants.

If after a 1st tier review, the member of the public remains dissatisfied with a Council’s decision regarding a grant request they can ask the SPSO for a review.

SPSO have 1 day to deal with Crisis Grant reviews and 21 days to deal with Community Care Grants. If SPSO disagree with the Council’s decision they may overturn that decision or ask the Council to reconsider.

The priorities for the first 12 months are to embed the new processes, monitor volumes and ensure a consistent quality in decision making.

Presentation is attached to these minutes.

  1. Data Protection – Debra Aitken, TPOS

Debra described how the Information Commissioner had lowered the thresholds for Data Protection Act breaches and that they were going to enforce these thresholds more stringently.

At TPOS, guidance has been produced to help staff understand why, when and how they should make data protection checks. Debra then asked to the group to comment on how DPA checks are carried out within their organisations.

Claire stated that ICE ask a series of security questions before they will disclose any information. The answers to which are held on their database.

IPCC and LGO are both similar in that they will only check the name and postcode. The Pensions Ombudsman will only speak to a named person.

Donal advised that the Legal Interest Group were currently developing DPA guidance for members. It will be looked at again at their meeting in the Autumn and then circulated to all members.

  1. Disclosure of names – Laura Jones, IPCC

Laura explained that IPPC had seen an increase in the harassment whereby members of the public had been searching for their staff online. They had also recently had to take legal action against someone for publishing personal details of an employee.

Other members of the group had had similar experiences within their own organisations. It was generally agreed that this is a symptom of modern times and we had a duty to protect our staff.

Social media policies were discussed and whether there needed to be guidance and training to educate staff about their online presence and how to protect themselves.

Donal will take this to the HR Interest Group and will ensure it is fed back to the IPCC representative of that group.

  1. Ombudsman Association update – Donal Galligan, Ombudsman Association

The OA conference and AGM was held on 12 – 13 May in Dublin and received very positive feedback.

The Executive Committee met on 22 April. Kieran Fitzgerald has been appointed as the Chair for a 2 year term.

A memorandum of understanding had been signed between OA and the International Ombudsman Institute. This will further promote the improvement of standards and information sharing across member schemes of both organisations.

The business plan is now on the OA website and it contains more focus on accountability of where fees are being spent. There is a budget for interest groups which preferably will be used to provide guest speakers.

Guidance has been produced for the Validation Committee to ensure that there is consistency around the validation of new members.

Next year’s conference will be in Loughborough on 25-26 May 2017 and suggestions for topics are welcome.

  1. Open forum

Dan advised that PSOW are trying to push towards a paperless office and asked if any schemes had any similar initiatives or experiences.The group discussed their shared difficulties about attempting to go paperless. It was generally agreed that a ‘paper light’ approach is likely to be more achievable.

Carol asked about customer survey benchmarking between organisations. Donal advised that Irish members may be doing some work on the validity of having one survey for all, in conjunction with Naomi Creutzfeldt, and that she maybe able to help with this in the future.

  1. Possible agenda items for future discussion

Managing expectations, with the possible input from Naomi Creutzfeldt on the practical principles around redress and service standards in public sector schemes.

Update on mental health awareness training at ICE

  1. Date and location of next meeting

The group agreed that, for accessibility reasons we would try to arrange one meeting per year in London and one external to London. We would be grateful if any group members with London meeting space could offer to host the next meeting.

Please contact Jonathan or Carol as soon as possible if you are able to accommodate this request so that a date can be set. We are provisionally considering 18th November 2015.