2.Main Content
Government
This page contains information about:
Disputes with government bodies
Local authorities
National and central government
Freedom of information
Contract disputes
Voluntary and community groups
Disputes with government bodies
If you have a dispute with a central or local government body, and cannot resolve it through their own complaints procedures, you have two main choices:
- Judicial Review
- Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
Judicial review is a procedure for allowing individuals and groups to challenge in court the way that ministers, government departments, local authorities and other public bodies make decisions. More detailed Judicial Review guidance can be found on the Court Service website.
The most common ADR route to resolving a dispute with a public body is to make a complaint to one of the public sector ombudsman schemes. Ombudsmen deal with complaints about ‘maladministration causing injustice’ - see What is maladministration? for more information about what this means. The ombudsman takes responsibility for investigating the complaint into how the department has behaved, which means that they can try to deal with the imbalance of power between the individual and the public body.
If you have a contract dispute with a local or central government department, see Contract disputes later on this page.
In 2005 the National Audit Office published a report into the way government departments dealt with complaints. The report concluded that many government departments were difficult to reach by phone, or slow to respond, and others were not set up to deal with requests for information or complaints. You can find a summary of this report on 2005 Citizen redress on this site.
Public sector ombudsmen
Before going to a public sector ombudsman, you first have to complain to the public body involved, and give them a chance to try to put things right. However, if you are not happy with their offer, or if they take far too long, you can take your complaint to the ombudsman. The ombudsman has reasonable discretion to decide whether to accept a complaint – most are happy to talk to you on the phone about the best course of action.
Ombudsmen can only investigate a complaint by an individual person, not by a group. But, of course, many actions or policies of local or national government departments affect more than one person. Ombudsmen will take this into account if and when they publish a report at the end of the investigation, and can recommend that the remedy they propose for the person complaining is offered to others affected in the same way. If your complaint is typical of the problems that other people have with your local authority, or with a particular government department, then it is worth making a complaint – other people might benefit from an ombudsman investigation as well.
Other useful pages on this site include:
ADR for complaints about police and prisons - Law and Rights
ADR for complaints about the National Health Service - Health and Social Care
ADR for complaints about the Inland Revenue - Money and Tax
Complaints about social security benefits - Benefits
top
Local authorities
Disputes with local authorities in the UK can go to:
The Local Government Ombudsman for England
The Public Services Ombud for Wales
The Scottish Public Services Ombud
The Northern Ireland Ombudsman
All of these ombudsmen deal with unresolved complaints about things like:
- education
- housing
- planning
- social services
- Council Tax and Housing Benefit
It is also worth knowing that there is another way of dealing with complaints about the actions of a local authority, which is not often used. It can be very speedy and effective. Each local authority is required to have an officer (often the Chief Executive) to ensure that the authority's policies and decisions are within the law. If you think that a decision has been made which does not follow the law then write to the monitoring officer. The legal department will have to investigate. It may be worth making sure you are right before taking this action, but in an emergency it can produce a very swift response.
If you want to complain about the way in which a local councillor has behaved, you should go to the Standards Board in England.
A similar complaint in Scotland should go to the Standards Commission for Scotland.
The Board and the Commission will not provide a remedy or compensation for an individual, but they can discipline or suspend a councillor who does not act according to the Code of Conduct.
It is not always easy to work out which complaint should go to which ombudsman – there is sometimes an overlap. For example, a complaint about a councillor’s actions which result in maladministration could either go to the Local Government Ombudsman or to the Standards Board. These two organisations do work closely together, and will help you to refer a complaint to the right place. In some cases, you can complain to both.
Also, some disputes over social services care, which go to the Local Government Ombudsman, overlap with health care provision, which is covered by the National Health Service complaints procedure and by the Health Service Ombudsman. It is always worth ringing the ombudsman helpline to get advice about where best to take your complaint.
top
National and central government
If you have a complaint about a central government department (such as the Department for Work and Pensions, which administers benefits), you can go to:
the Parliamentary Ombudsman in England
the Scottish Public Services Ombud
the Public Services Ombud for Wales
the Northern Ireland Ombudsman
All of these schemes work slightly differently – follow the links above to the pages on this site which give more details.
More than one-third of complaints going to the Parliamentary Ombudsman relate to the Department for Work and Pensions, and a large number of these relate to misleading advice on benefits entitlement. The Parliamentary Ombudsman also deals with mishandled applications for immigration and asylum.
top
Freedom of information
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into effect in January 2005. Since then, if you have a complaint about a public body which refuses to make information available you can go to the Information Commissioner (for England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Complaints about access to information in Scotland go to the Information Commissioner for Scotland.
The Information Commissioner also oversees compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and deals with complaints from all UK citizens about the use of personal data held on them.
top
Contract disputes
Government departments often contract with other organisations, including not-for-profit agencies, to provide services. Sometimes these contracts end up in disputes. In 2001 the government pledged to use ADR to settle its disputes about contracts in all suitable cases. Generally what is meant by ADR in this context is mediation; the guidance issued by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) refers explicitly to mediation. Other ADR options identified for dealing with of contractual disputes includes expert determination, arbitration, and early neutral evaluation. You can find information about all of these in the Types of ADR menu on this site.
It can be difficult to decide whether it is better to try mediation, or to go to court in order to resolve a contract dispute. In 2003 the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution CEDR issued a guide to ADR for public authorities. It identified circumstances in which mediation might not be suitable:
- where direct negotiations are progressing well
- where a legal precedent is required
- where a speedy injunction is needed
The guide suggests that one reason for government bodies to choose mediation is to "avoid a potentially damaging or unhelpful precedent". This may well be an advantage for local authorities, and could be fine for contractual disputes where both parties want to avoid both publicity. But there are some dangers. Often a legally established precedent is a way of ensuring access to rights or entitlements not just for the individual complainants, but for many others who are similarly affected. Agreeing to mediation may resolve an individual problem with less stress, cost and risk, but it might also enable an authority to avoid a precedent on which others need to rely.
In 2003 the Scottish Courts published guidance on ADR for Scottish government bodies. It identifies circumstances in which ADR might be inappropriate:
"There may be cases that are not suitable for settlement through ADR, such as cases involving intentional wrongdoing, abuse of power, public law, Human Rights and vexatious litigants. There will also be disputes where, for example, a legal precedent is needed to clarify the law, or where it would be contrary to the public interest to settle."
It is also worth knowing that the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Service Managers (SOLACE ) runs a mediation service for disputes with local authorities. These disputes can be about local authority employment, planning decisions or education. In some cases it is a potential alternative to the Local Government Ombudsman. However, there is a charge for mediation under this scheme, and the ombudsman is free to the user. Mediations are run by CEDR.
If you have decided to try mediation to resolve a dispute, see our Tips for mediation page to help you prepare.
top
Voluntary and community groups
For disputes between government departments and voluntary and community groups, mediation is available through the Compact Mediation Scheme. The Compact is a framework setting out how government and the voluntary sector should work together. The Compact mediation scheme is an independent, impartial mediation service provided by CEDR. It can be initiated either by the government department concerned, or by the community group. Mediation can be used for a range of issues that arise in relation to the Compact - including issues such as funding, consultation, policy appraisal and volunteering. Further information on the Compact Mediation Scheme can be found on the CEDR website.
For a checklist to help you prepare for mediation, see Tips for mediation.
top
Revised January 2007
End of Section Back to top