Ombudsmen: a substitute for litigation? Judith Farbey reports
In hard economic times and in the face of proposed changes to legal aid, alternatives to litigation may come into sharper focus. The Law Commission’s recent consultation on “Public Services Ombudsmen” was therefore welcome.
The consultation paper (No 196) covered the Parliamentary Commissioner, the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), the Health Service Ombudsman, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, and the Housing Ombudsman. These institutions provide a non-litigious avenue for individuals to call for the scrutiny of the decisions of public bodies. Each of the ombudsman schemes has a different statutory origin but all have features in common. The Law Commission’s consultation paper highlights four shared features:
- the ombudsmen deploy investigatory procedures;
- they are independent;
- they make recommendations;
- and they focus primarily on administrative processes rather than the merits of decisions.
In each case too, an individual cannot in broad terms complain to the ombudsman if there are other available remedies including judicial review. Given the expansive reach of modern judicial review, the Law Commission rightly expresses concern that this limitation has favoured “confrontational litigation”
