BackOn October 21-22 in Manchester, the UK National Ombudsman will be submitting itself to an IOI-led Ombudsman peer review.
The UK National Ombudsman undertook its first peer review in 2018. Since then, the Ombudsman has led the international effort to establish peer review as a critical tool to assess effectiveness more broadly, including against the Venice Principles. As a result, there are now IOI best practice papers and guidance on the subject.
This summer, the IOI established a pool of accredited peer reviewers. This pool was put together by Dr Tom Frawley, previously Northern Ireland Ombudsman, and validated by the IOI board. From this pool, the panel for a particular review can be drawn.
An in-person site visit is crucial to the peer review process, and there has therefore been a pause during the pandemic. The UK Ombudsman is now working towards its second peer review and is working with a panel chaired by Dr Andreas Pottakis (Greek Ombudsman and President of the European Board of the IOI). Other members are Matanyahu Englman (State Comptroller and Israeli Ombudsman), Andrea Keenoy (Chief Operating Officer at the UK Housing Ombudsman), and Professor Robert Thomas (Professor of Public Law at Manchester University and panel secretary).
All organisations are subject to a range of different forms of scrutiny. In the UK Ombudsman’s case, this includes our Board, Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, the National Audit Office, internal audit and, of course, Parliament. It’s important in considering the scope (ultimately to be agreed with the review panel) to reflect on how peer review sits alongside other mechanisms. In this instance, we expect the panel to consider our work against the standards of the Venice Principles, looking at value for money but also progress since the last review, progress going forward in terms of our new Corporate Strategy and how the UK Ombudsman handled the pandemic. The product will be a light touch summary report, with identified strengths, areas of improvement and recommendations drawn from good practice elsewhere.
We have identified a list of material which we are now assembling to provide to the panel in advance of the visit, recognising the need to be selective and provide targeted reading. At the same time, we are focusing on developing an agenda for the visit, with the opportunity for the panel to meet executives and non-executives, have presentations from teams and meet a group of staff in confidence, engage with our internal auditors and hold a focus group with complainants and organisations we investigate. This is an important initiative for the UK Ombudsman. We are keen to reflect on our transformation journey and recent achievements and we also expect it to make a significant contribution to our understanding as a learning organisation.
Source: Office of the National Ombudsman, United Kingdom
