Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman: Additional Evidence Part 1

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1 : Additional Evidence Part 1 Accommodation strategy Following the publication of our Annual Report and Accounts , the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee asked for further information about our accommodation strategy. The average number of people working for us in was 423 full-time equivalents. Our staff worked at two sites: one in London and one in Manchester. Our medium-term strategy is to reduce our overall accommodation costs by reducing our floor-space in London. We have reduced the number of floors we occupy in our London premises from seven in 2012/13 to four in 2014/15. This has achieved savings in our overall accommodation budget of 1 million in 2014/15 compared with 2012/13. We have reduced the demand for space in our London office through reducing our headcount; reducing the number of meeting rooms and the size of some communal spaces; and reducing the square meterage per person to reflect government property unit best practice, and flexible working patterns. The Government is committed to legislation on ombudsman reform. The leases on our current London and Manchester premises expire in 2018, and we will develop a longterm accommodation strategy with other ombudsman services affected by the legislation to ensure maximum benefit for the tax-payer. We have pursued our medium term accommodation strategy within the context of our existing London lease. There is no break clause within the lease arrangements, and it therefore could not be terminated early either on the basis of individual floors, or as a whole. We are legally bound to pay the lease charges for the remainder of the term, therefore, sub-letting was an option which reduced the financial impact on the taxpayer. The only floor vacated in 2014/15 was floor 14. The cost of the lease, plus the service charge was 0.827m in 2014/15. For all vacated floors, the financial commitments for the current financial year until the end of the lease are as follows. This includes rent and service charges. Floor 2015/ / / / m 0.481m 0.481m 0.361m m 0.476m 0.476m 0.357m m 0.496m 0.496m 0.372m There are no further year on year financial commitments in relation to these floors. However, as with all floors within the lease, PHSO has contractual dilapidation responsibilities at the end of the lease. These have also been passed onto the subtenants in relation to their occupation. Page 1 of 11

2 The income PHSO will receive from sub-tenants up to the end of the lease is set out below. 2014/ / / / /19 All floors 0.486m 0.992m 1.090m 1.174m 0.880m In terms of certainty, in accordance with the contractual obligations of the subtenants, the income is 100% certain for the financial years 2015/16 and 2016/17. Two sub-tenants have a break clause within the lease within the first quarter of 2017/18. One tenant has indicated they do not wish to exercise the break clause. The income is therefore considered 75% certain to be received in full for the remaining period of the lease. November 2015 Page 2 of 11

3 : Additional Evidence Part 2 Question 1: Please list all office sites occupied by PHSO in 2012/13 and in 2014/15. The sites we occupied in 2012/13 and in 2014/15 were The Exchange in Manchester and Millbank Tower in London. Question 2: Please confirm the number of FTE staff in each of PHSO s office sites in 2012/13 and 2014/15 The following table shows the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) staff at each of our offices: 2012/13 (30 April 2013) 2014/15 (31 March 2015) Manchester London The 2012/13 figures are as at 30 April Before this date we did not capture FTEs per site. The table excludes FTE agency staff we employed in 2012/13 and FTE agency staff we employed in 2014/15, as we do not record at which site our agency staff are based. Question 3: Please confirm the square meterage per member of FTE staff in each of your office sites in 2012/13 and 2014/15. The following table shows the square meterage per member of FTE staff at each of our offices (excludes agency staff): 2012/ /15 Manchester London Question 4: Please provide more information on how flexible working patterns are helping to reduce the amount of space required in your offices, including any figures you have on the number of staff working in this way. Through flexible working patterns we are able to reduce the amount of space we need in our offices through desk sharing and hot desking arrangements. This is done in a number of investigations teams, our clinical advice team and the team which has responsibility for quality and service Integrity. Page 3 of 11

4 The following table shows the number of employees with formal agreements in place at this point in time. Some people will fit into more than one category, for example someone may work compressed hours or part-time hours and also have a day working at home. The figures exclude Agency staff as we do not keep records of their working arrangements. Most agency staff are full-time and office based. London Manchester Total PHSO Total headcount Part-time 51 (22%) 40 (15%) 91 (19%) Compressed Hours 12 (5%) 8 (3%) 20 (4%) Home Working 30 (13%) 30 (12%) 60 (12%) We also have a number of staff who work from home on an ad hoc/non-contractual basis. This is not formally recorded but also contributes to us being able to make more efficient use of space. Question 9: Please confirm which organisations(s) you are subletting floors 13, 14 and 23 to. We have sublet these floors to the Green Investment Bank, At the Races, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England and the Home Office. December 2015 Page 4 of 11

5 : Additional Evidence Part 3 Question 6: Our calculations suggest that the total difference between the rent you pay for the three floors you have vacated and the expected income from those three floors is 2.3m for the 2014/15 to 2018/19 period. I enclose a spreadsheet showing our calculation, which uses the provision utilised figure in the 2014/15 accounts as a cost figure for 2014/15 (as the document you sent us did not have a cost for ). Please confirm whether this calculation is correct. If it is not, please can you flag up and explain any discrepancies? Yes, this is accurate. We have updated your spreadsheet (see below) to provide the 2014/15 costs the difference is 2.272m, or 2.3m rounded as you suggest. Cost Floor 2014/ / / / / Income 2014/ / / / /19 All floors Difference Total difference ( m) Question 7: The information you provided shows that the cost of rent and service charges for floor 14 was 827,000 in 2014/15 but 476,000 from 2015/16. Please can you clarify the reason for this change in cost? There has been some overlap here in terms of the information provided, as floors 14 and 15 are part of a joint lease and are charged jointly - this was the figure provided in our first response. While the floors can be separated for the purpose of comparison, payments are always made on a joint floor basis. On the basis of separation, the costs for floor 14 only are rent of 358k and service charges of 115k, making a total cost for floor 14 of 473k. The stated cost of 476k for floor 14 in 2015/16 is correct as already advised. Question 8: You mention that you vacated floors 13 and 23 before 2014/15. When were these floors vacated and was there a loss on the subletting of these Page 5 of 11

6 floors too? If so, was an onerous lease provision made for them? How much was the loss for each floor and year after vacation? Floor 13 was vacated in July 2012 and a tenant was found immediately. Floor 23 became vacant in August 2013, but due to a tenant withdrawing in January 2014, it was not fully occupied until August We correctly declared the Onerous Lease in financial year 2014/15, as agreed with the National Audit Office. There was no requirement to declare an Onerous Lease in 2012, as floor 13 found a tenant immediately. The difference or loss between the rent and subletting income in 2014/15 is provided in the calculations provided for our response to Question 6 above. Question 10: We understand that at the end of the audit, you will have received a management letter (also called an ISA260 report) from the National Audit Office laying out their commentary about the leases issue and other governance issues. Please provide the Committee with a copy of this letter. A copy of the NAO report is enclosed. December 2015 Page 6 of 11

7 : Additional Evidence Part 4 At a meeting of the Expert Advisory Group on IPSIS last week, Dame Julie mentioned that PHSO had cleared a backlog of cases. Can you outline: how you have dealt with that backlog, what the outcomes were in those cases that were cleared, and how many historical cases there still are for PHSO to deal with Two years ago we lowered the threshold to be reached before we would carry out an investigation, so that we could deliver more impact for more people. We have increased the number of investigations tenfold since then, completing 4,159 investigations in , compared with 384 in We have also reduced the time it takes us to investigate a complaint to an average of 117 days in , from 137 days in , and 305 days in However, as a result of these very significant changes in volume of casework, there have been some temporary bottlenecks in our casework process which caused delays last year. This particularly affected people whose cases we had decided to investigate. We took the following steps to address the backlog of cases, and we estimate that by 1 January 2016, we will have assigned to an assessor all complaints from the backlog that were awaiting an assessment; and that by mid-february 2016, we will have allocated to an investigator all complaints from the backlog that were awaiting an investigation. Due to the introduction of our Service Model in August, we are now able to manage this significant increase in volume. Dealing with extra work and the bottleneck in our process We have redirected around 1m to a project team of 40 additional temporary caseworkers to deal with extra work we received during the first half of the business year, and to tackle the bottlenecks in our process. When the team started work in October 2015, they took on 1,152 complaints that were awaiting an assessment, the stage of our process where we decide whether or not to investigate a complaint. As of 18 December 2015, that number was down to 137, and we expect these remaining complaints to be assigned to an assessor by 1 January As of 18 December 2015, the team had completed a total of 532 assessments; 43% of these complaints were accepted for investigation. The team also took on 390 complaints that were waiting to be investigated, all of which were allocated to an investigator within the first three weeks. As of 18 December 2015, the team was holding 204 complaints which are awaiting an investigation and we expect to allocate all these complaints to an investigator by mid-february As of 18 December 2015, the team had completed a total of 55 investigations of which 12 were upheld. Page 7 of 11

8 To ensure that we provide a consistent, high-quality service, our new team has been trained in our new way of working, including all aspects of our complaints process. All work undertaken by the team is aligned with our Service Model, working principles, and our quality framework. The team is subject to the same quality assurance scrutiny as every other team and we centrally quality check all investigations completed by the team for sound decisions. They are managed by experienced managers and supported by senior caseworkers. Dealing with old cases There will always be some very complex complaints that come to us that should and will take longer to resolve. However, we have taken decisive action to complete cases that have been with us for 12 months or longer. Our Director of Investigations has taken direct oversight of these old cases, ensuring that there is a clear focus on resolving them. He is supported by an Assistant Director and a dedicated team of external associate caseworkers. We are closely monitoring the time it takes to complete cases and escalating those which have the potential to become old up the casework management chain for oversight and intervention. Our new oversight arrangements have enabled much closer scrutiny and forward planning. We are now tackling our old cases in a more focused way and are also better able to tackle cases before they become old. We are also better able to understand why certain investigations may take longer. This helps us to continuously develop our work; and to identify different approaches to such cases to ensure we carry out a thorough and proportionate investigation in all circumstances. As of 1 October 2015, we identified 330 cases that were either old or had potential to become old. Through our new approach, we have reduced this figure by 186 to 144 cases, as of 18 December December 2015 Page 8 of 11

9 : Additional Evidence Part 5 Question 5: You have stated that accommodation changes have achieved savings in our overall accommodation budget of 1 million in 2014/15 compared with 2012/13. Please provide figures showing how this saving has been achieved. To supplement our initial response, we have undertaken a further review of our accommodation savings, to ensure all items are included in our response. We have based this upon actuals costs rather than just budget reductions, so that the Committee has a full breakdown of the full costs as per our accounts. In summary, we can now provide a more complete breakdown of our office accommodation savings. While undertaking this process it became apparent that we had stated a figure in relation to current savings in our previous submission rather than 2014/15. The detailed analysis of our accommodation costs for London is set out below, and shows that in 2014/15, we had saved 640k compared to 2012/13, and that this has risen to a saving of 1.3m in 2015/ / / /2016 Income Rent 197, Income Rent 332, Income Rent 675, Service Charge 99, Service Charge 153, Service Charge 317, Rates - Rates - Rates - TOTAL 296, TOTAL 486, TOTAL 992, Expenditure Rent 2,694, Expenditure Rent 2,549, Expenditure Rent 2,549, Service Charge 924, Service Charge 824, Service Charge 835, Rates 887, Rates 681, Rates 489, TOTAL 4,506, TOTAL 4,056, TOTAL 3,875, Net Cost 4,209, Net Cost 3,569, Net Cost 2,882, Change from 2012/13-640, ,327, December 2015 Page 9 of 11

10 : Additional Evidence Part 6 The Project Team This note is intended to assist in answering the Committee s questions raised around the cases being dealt with by our extra resources in the project team, alongside the cases being dealt with by our permanent caseworkers (our business as usual). As you know, we have undertaken some specific and decisive actions to reduce the numbers of people waiting for a decision the backlog which was referred to. One of these actions was a transfer of cases from those waiting in assessment and investigation queues to our project team. However, it is important to note that we have created the fixed-term project team for the purposes of: Providing the opportunity for the effective embedding of our service model/new ways of working Taking account of the operational impact of the implementation of our new casework management system Ensuring that both of these improvement activities do not have an adverse effect on the people using our service and can be implemented safely The initial work of the project team was to take a proportion of the cases queuing in the operation, at both assessment and investigation allocation points. This was undertaken at the same time as our service model went fully live, and was done to balance the need to respond to customers, with the support and development activity within the operation embedding the service model. We have recruited, through a robust process including detailed application criteria, competence-based interviewing and assessment, a pool of people for a fixed period. These individuals have undergone full training and induction and are trained and competent to deliver. The recruitment and training was the same as for permanent staff, including a requirement criterion for education to degree level or equivalent, relevant experience. The project team consists of 35 fixed term staff members, who all operate to our service model and working practices, including its performance requirements, service standards, behaviours and quality assurance processes. In the business as usual operation there are 26 assessors, 87 standard investigators and 22 complex investigators. Each individual carries the same minimum casework requirements as permanent staff members. For assessors that is a minimum caseload of 20 per individual and for investigators, it is a minimum caseload of 16 per individual. Therefore, the volume of complaints handled is proportionate to the number of staff in the project team or the permanent organisational structure in the same ratios. In addition to the original flow of cases into the project team, further cases have been picked up through December 2015 and January 2016 in supporting the Page 10 of 11

11 implementation of the new casework management system, during its controlled roll out across the operation. As at the beginning of January 2016, the number of cases underway in the project team are: 484 assessments and 308 investigations. In the business as usual operation, they are 522 assessments and 1,312 investigations. We handle cases with a wide range of content, from complaints about dental charges through to complaints about avoidable death. These are our complex cases and the project team does not deal with these. They are handled by specific teams within the business as usual operation (the 1,312 investigations above). As the project team are new to our organisation, two further layers of quality assurance have been introduced, as well as an increased level of supervision. This means that at each investigatory milestone, such as confirming the scope of an investigation, there is consideration by a senior staff member before it progresses. In addition, as with all investigations, each case is signed off by a manager, and we have clear quality criteria that are sampled on a regular basis and the learning is fed back to assist in coaching and development. This is to ensure that people using our service are responded to effectively and appropriately whilst permanent staff are trained and casework is transitioned to the new system. This allows a level of safe deployment without impacting our customers experience. We know that of all the quality and customer experience issues that people have raised as customers of our service, waiting and poor communication are the greatest. The project team allows us to respond to these issues. Importantly, it has enabled our permeant staff to focus on using the revised service model and new ways of working and allowed them to deal with the demand in our business as usual operation. Additional questions You have also asked how many of our cases from were linked to previous complaints. In there were 1,068 cases which were linked to previous complaints from the same person about the same organisation. There are a number of reasons for this: the organisation carrying out further work on the case before we could start an investigation; the complainant having another reason to complain about a related issue; or completely new issue that was not part of the original case. We open new cases upon review, when we find that further work on the case is required, for example if we have new information, we have misunderstood the complaint or made an error. In we further investigated 29 cases as a result of review. January 2016 Page 11 of 11