BackA new report by the Parliamentary Ombudsman reveals how people are struggling to get government departments and public organisations to put right basic mistakes, causing distress, inconvenience, and, in some cases, financial hardship.
The report shows how difficult it can be for people to get their voice heard when things have gone wrong. It tells the stories of some of the many people who turned to the Ombudsman’s Service in the last year when all other attempts to get simple problems resolved had left them with nowhere else to go. These include:
- A father who was deprived of child support for years because of mistakes made by the Child Support Agency.
- A family left without tax credits for five months that had to borrow from relatives to make ends meet.
- A man who was unable to work because of a delay in processing his HGV licence.
Ombudsman, Julie Mellor, said: ‘Small administrative errors can have a big impact on people’s lives. As well as causing inconvenience and frustration, people who come to us for help are often experiencing real financial hardship or other difficulties because simple problems haven’t been sorted out quickly enough. It should take days not months and, in some cases, years to sort out the smallest of mistakes. Every organisation makes mistakes, but when they do, they need to take the time to listen to people, to fix what’s gone wrong, and then learn from what’s happened, to stop the same thing happening to other service users.’
The complete press release is available here.
